Having Fun Photographing at Night

Fernandez house at the stone barn farm under the clouds and stars converted to black and white

I am sorry that the night of September 24, no one, except my grandson joined me for a night of photographing milky way.  Although there were some clouds present, the sky was clear enough to capture the stars and glimpses of the Milky Way.  Besides taken various pictures from different angles of the sky, we also experimented with Light-painting, including taking some selfies.  The only difficulty we had was determining the right length of time to leave the flashlight on.  Because of the sensitivity of my sensor , light painting only required a few seconds; while my grandson who was using a Nikon D300s required a longer time.

 My camera and lens was a Nikon D800 and a Ronikon 24 mm lens (this lens is completely manual and is a great lens for night sky photography along with its brother the 14 mm lens).  My settings on the camera was ISO 2500, 20 second exposure, with a two second delay on the shutter firing after the remote trigger was pressed.  With these settings, looking at the histogram and the LCD on the camera, you would think we were shooting in daylight.  Except for Thursday night, September 25 when it's supposed to be raining in southeastern Massachusetts, the rest of the weekend, the sky at night is supposed to be clear and if you haven't tried photographing the Milky Way, this is a good chance to do it.



Photo Right out of the camera



Same photo processed in LR

Same scene Light-painted

Selfie

Clouds and Milky Way

Clouds and Milky Way plus light plaiting

Clouds and Milky Way different view

If you would like a copy of an instruction sheet that I have made up for photographing the Milky Way, just send me your email address in the comments section below and I will send it out to you.



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Night Sky, Milky Way, and Light-Painting

Looking South - Milky Way, light-painting of a tree with the red light, with Scorpio behind the tree

As I had written in my last blog that that night, I was going out to the Stone Barn to photograph the Milky Way.  It turned out to be a wonderful evening and night.  The weather was just perfect, skies absolutely clear, minimal wind, sparkling skies and even some meteors.  My grandson and I arrived around 830 and set up our equipment and then just waited to the skies got dark enough.  We photographed until around 10 o'clock, changing locations where we photographed and experimenting with Light painting.  Even though the peak time for the Perseids is the 11 through 13 August, people are reporting 10 or more meteors per hour, so if you have a chance to get out and the night is clear look to the sky, because the meteors can be anywhere.

The Milky Way directly overhead

Looking north, Fernandez's house light painted and the Big Dipper overhead

Looking south, from the Stone Barn, utilizing a fisheye lens, the Milky Way and the foreground light-painted