First shot of Milkyway. Advice appreciated.

Astrophotographer 10 wrote:

edorf_71 wrote:

Astrophotographer 10 wrote:

Use ISO6400. Shoot in RAW if you didn't already. LENR on.

The 2 streaks are meteors. They are quite common at a dark site. In a light polluted area you only see the very brightest ones but at a dark site you see the more minor ones and they happen quite frequently.

Greg.

Thanks Greg!

There was some pollution about 20 miles away(city), other than that quite dark. I used LENR ON. Got to push up the ISO then. Do you find Fujis OK for those kind of shots? Do you focus at infinity?

None of my lenses I have ever used have a reliable infinity mark. I manually focus on a bright star at ISO6400 and use magnified view. You'll see the star shrink and then enlarge again as you go past focus so back and forth and then you can see the exact focus point. Its usually just before infinity.

Alternatively focus at infinity during the day and tape the focus ring if your lens lets you do that and make sure the camera is set to manual focus before you use it at night.

The Fuji lenses I have used that were good are:

1. 14mm F2.8 ( one of the best).

2. 16-55 at 16mm and F2.8 is quite good.

3. Not a Fuji but the Samyang 12mm F2.0 is good at F2.0. Perhaps not a very sharp daytime lens but fine for a nightscape where sharpness isn't your primary concern. Your primary concern is no coma in the corners and not too much CA. CA can be corrected in post, coma only if its slight otherwise you have to stop down and then it requires too long an exposure for untracked imaging.

Greg.

Very good advice there, Greg!

Reg,