First attempt to shoot milkyway: critique and post-processing advice

Camrarat wrote:

this reminds me of my first attempts at mw shots. given your sky looks so bright but your exposures are only 10s and your iso is relatively modest, i believe your shooting location was too bright. you will want to go somewhere where you can get 20-30s exposure in a shot ideally without the sky whiting out like that.

Yes, I agree. I was playing with the ISO and shutter speed. I didn't use a shutter speed longer than 13 s as I didn't want excessive trailing. I will try shooting with longer shutter speeds and hopefully from an even darker location next time.

i had similar experience and my shots only improved when i picked a new shooting location where i could easily see the milky way with the naked eye,

Yes, I agree. I have no knowledge of places to shoot. I had been wanting to check out a place as I had hoped it'd be better for astrophotography. If not for the annoying couple of streetlights, I liked the place. I know of another place where the sky is dark and the views are fantastic. But it's a two and half hour drive and it doesn't help when the weather is iffy.

if you can shoot towards the ocean or someplace where there is zero light, and do it on a night with zero clouds.

I agree. The coast is quite far (~10-12 hrs drive) from where I live. The other options for me are either the Himalayas (Leh/Ladakh region) or the desert region. However, as you've said the only limiting factor in doing photography is the weather and of late we have had bad weather with the cyclones/monsoons/rains eating up 7-8 months of a year.

Regards

Suman