Being primarily a deep sky astrophotographer, I rarely attempted shooting the stars using just a camera and a lens, set on a non-tracking tripod. I guess the main reason for this is that I live in such a light polluted city, which offers little by way of widefield shots. Although some pioneers have now demonstrated that shooting the milky way is possible even from the most light polluted spots imaginable, the images that are to follow are taken from a suburb in a neighbouring country.
Although I have been into astronomy for several years, it's rather surprising that I never saw the summer milky way before, that is, until my recent trip overseas a couple of weeks ago. Of the times when I ventured out of my country, I have never seen the vast expanse of the galactic bulge, mainly because I typically leave the country only during the end of the year when the winter milky way is up.
Anyhow, when I finally got to see the milky way with my own eyes, it was a breathtaking moment. Everywhere I looked, the sky was filled with countless stars. The Milky Way was a strange glowing cloud hanging in the sky, stretching from one end to the other. Through binoculars, for every star you can see with the naked eye, you could see a hundred more. With a telescope, the grey mist of the milky way is resolved into the individual stars that make it up. Looking at the milky way with different instruments makes it seem almost fractal-like. No matter how much you zoom, all you see are countless stars fading into infinity.
Of course, my instinct was to grab my camera and start shooting. With a micro four thirds and wide angle 12mm lens, I caught the milky way in all its glory and splendor.
Photographic Information:
Imaging location: Bekok, Malaysia (Light pollution: Suburban Sky/Yellow Zone)
Date of data acquisition: 1 June 2014
Exposure Details: ~5min, 12mm FL at f/2 (on a M4/3 Crop)
Camera: Olympus OM-D EM10 Unmodified
Stacked with DSS, adjustment of curves and colors in Adobe Photoshop CS6.
With skies staying clear before midnight till dawn, I obviously had to grab the opportunity and image more objects. Because of my short focal lengths used, limited by gear and lack of tracking, most deep sky objects remained out of reach. The largest object in terms of angular size that can at least show a hint of detail with my setup is probably the rho ophiuchus cloud complex. The rho ophiuchus cloud complex is a reflection/absorption nebula that surrounds the star Antares. With dark lanes extending from the Antares region towards the central bulge, this is a prime target for widefield astrophotography.
The image above frames Antares nicely close to the centre, with the dark lanes extending towards the bottom of the frame. Reflection nebulosity is visible as well.
Repositioning the direction of the camera, I attempted to shoot the nebula whilst keeping the dark lanes of the milky way partly in view.
This image shows the intricate colour details, although part of it is contributed by chromatic aberrations. The focus of the image is also not as good as the previous image, which is undoubtedly difficult to get while shooting at a very fast focal ratio.
Photographic Information (for both images of the Rho Ophiuchus complex):
Imaging location: Bekok, Malaysia (Light pollution: Suburban Sky/Yellow Zone)
Date of data acquisition: 1 June 2014
Exposure Details: ~10min, 50mm FL at f/1.8 (on an APSC crop)
Camera: Canon EOS 600D Unmodified
Stacked with DSS, adjustment of curves and colors in Adobe Photoshop CS6.
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