Reach for the stars / Get set to shoot the night sky

1 Wide angle and wide aperture

A fast wide-angle lens is a must to capture as much light, and as big an expanse of the Milky Way, as possible. We used a Nikon 24mm f/2.8 lens, but a wider-angle lens will capture a greater slice of the heavens, and even wider apertures maximize the amount of light you can capture.

3 Tripod and head

Set up the tripod and ensure the legs are locked in place. If shooting on soft ground, gently push the tripod down until it settles firmly into place. Then screw the footplate into your Nikon and lock the camera into the head, ensuring the horizon is perfectly level.

5 Exposure Delay Mode

With longer exposures, even the act of pressing the shutter release button can jog the camera and result in a blurring of the image. To avoid this, use a remote shutter release or engage Exposure Delay Mode to set a small delay before taking the shot to allow vibration to subside.

2 Take a high-iso test shot

Set Aperture Priority mode and set the lens’s widest available aperture, and ramp up the ISO as high as it will go – we used f/2.8 and ISO25,600. The resultant shot will be extremely noisy and blurry, but will give you a quick indication of your composition and exposure.

4 Composition

A horizontal composition works well if you have an interesting foreground, but limits the amount of galaxy stretching out above. For less photogenic locations, and to make the most of the night sky, try shooting vertically with just a small slither of land at the bottom of the frame.

6 Long Exposure NR on or off?

Long Exposure Noise Reduction produces cleaner images, but doubles your exposure time (see right). When taking several long exposures this can significantly increase the amount of shooting time, so we normally recommend leaving this option turned off.