Shooting stars
Grab your last chance to shoot the Milky Way in landscapes, or try capturing star trails. Andrew Fusek Peters is your guide
landscape photographer andrew Fusek Peters shares his tips for capturing the best shots of star trails and the Milky Way
It’s an exciting challenge to take on a dark, star-filled night as a photographer. Whether it’s chasing the elusive Milky Way or showing the motion of the stars over a period of time to create star trails, you need to think carefully about choosing the right location, the right time of year and night, the right weather, the right settings and finally the right post-processing to bring the heavens into frame. Read on to discover some of my tips and tricks for producing sparkling results.
Timing
Shooting the Milky Way requires a fair amount of planning and research. First, although it’s visible all year, the galactic core itself, which gives such oomph to night shots, is not visible in the Northern Hemisphere during winter. April is the first month to start planning your shoot and September the last. The PhotoPills app will help you plan your shoot on or around the new moon since with
moonlight, the Milky Way appears washed out. The app also gives information on when astronomical twilight is over and the stars are fully visible.
Location
Once you have a clear night, with little wind and no moon, choosing a location is your next priority. What the vast grandeur of the Milky Way requires is a good foreground to anchor the final picture. There are many foregrounds that suit the Milky Way, from water to rocks, old buildings, hills, mountains and silhouetted trees. The only essential requirement is for there to be as little light pollution as possible, and you can find the best places by using sites such as Dark Site Finder. Unfortunately, the UK does not have many light-free areas, so if there is a distant glow from a town, try to make it work for you as part of the picture. Here is your chance to do something different. Several of the spots I have worked at had never been photographed at night, so it was a joy to do something fresh and different. Think out of the box – and that doesn’t mean another clichéd shot of a ‘person with headtorch’ shining up at the Milky Way!
Setting up
Setting up your shot requires thought, practice and patience. Remember, the Milky Way is not static, so you need to be on site in plenty of time to set up. The Milky Way moves from south east to south west over the summer months, so you need to position your camera and tripod facing this direction. If your land feature is a rock formation, one aim is to have the diagonal of the Milky Way (rising from right to left) coming out of the rock or over the rock. It’s important to think of the overall composition. Again, the Sky Guide app is useful, as the virtual view shows exactly where and when the Milky Way will rise, and most importantly when the galactic core is visible.
‘Start with a tungsten white balance, as this can be warmed up later’
Focusing
Once you have an idea of your composition, there are various ways to focus. I have found using live view with a torch, or having a friend aim their torch on to the foreground, both work pretty well. Some astro shooters swear by focusing on the stars, but infinity on wide lenses such as the Samyang 14mm f/2.8 or the Sigma 14mm f/1.8 is pretty close, so anything focused over two to three metres away is sharp all the way to the stars themselves. It’s worth noting that the rising Milky Way looks pretty dull and nothing like most published astro shots. Start with a tungsten white balance, as this can be warmed up later if needed.
Post-processing
Our eyes are not good at night vision and the raw file is just the start of the processing journey. With a good raw image, bring up shadows and blacks (unless you want a silhouette). Use an adjustment brush on the stars to bring up exposure, clarity and contrast to taste. There is much more detail in the raw, and I like to think of a good astro photograph as showing an owl eye’s view. There is nothing wrong with adding punch to your picture but don’t overdo it. A mask sharpen filter in Photoshop can help ping out the stars, and if necessary, run Nik Define to reduce noise.
The result should show what the glory of the sky can offer. Once you have mastered the basics, then it’s time to take it up a notch. With a geared or panoramic head, try for a Milky Way panorama. The lead shot here was done on three layers of seven shots, in landscape mode. Photoshop did a good job, but the resulting blend had a hugely curved horizon. This is where working with transform features such as Warp and Puppet Warp can help straighten things out. You can then experiment with breaking the rules.
One of my best Milky Way shots was when I went out for aurora (no show in Shropshire!). I thought I might as well set up for astro and as I did, the full moon rose in the east. Ignoring all that I had learnt, I continued shooting and one photo came out perfectly, with foreground rocks on the Stiperstones, the full-moon light turning the valleys strange and ethereal, and the Milky Way leading up and vanishing into the high clouds. Learn the rules, then go for something new.