Tippecanoe Indiana Milky Way at Camp Tecumseh

This past weekend I was in Tippecanoe, Indiana at Camp Tecumseh. I took advantage of the dark skies and brought along my camera. Just like previous years, I was at a Peer Education retreat, and went out later at night for some shots away from the light pollution in Indianapolis. Unfortunately, this year it was extremely humid and I had to wipe the lens every 30 seconds, re-focus, and try to get a quick photo before condensation would creep in again. All of this on top of the heat which adds to the image noise.

Nevertheless, it was worth a try, and I got a much better photo than I can achieve from my own back yard. I came away with ONE decent image out of the whole lot, but hey I can say I tried!

Milky Way from Camp Tecumseh, Indiana, single frame, Canon T5i at ISO 6400, 24mm, f/4, 13 seconds, heavily adjusted in Photoshop

I had my EyeFi memory card with me, and was able to Instagram the photo before I even got home! I transferred it from my camera to my iPhone, and edited it in Instagram - which actually wasn't too bad. EyeFi lets you transfer files over a short range WiFi connection that the card puts - no internet provider needed. It's not like you can surf the net on it though, haha, but you can get your photos to post them immediately. Note: RAW files don't transfer to switch to JPEG or do what I did and use the JPEG + RAW shooting to save both to the card at the same time.


Below is a comparison of the original file, my Photoshop edits, and the in-app edits in Instagram. I think Photoshop is still a lot better, but Instagram is definitely getting better especially for convenience of doing it all from a cabin in the woods.

Side by side comparison with original file from camera (ISO 6400, 24mm, f/4, 13 seconds) edited in Photoshop vs. in-app edits in Instagram transferred to phone with EyeFi. 

Here are a few more photos from the night. I was only out for 15 minutes or so. You can tell the humidity was just unbearable.

Cool lens flare, but not what I was going for...

Big dipper and hazy humid parking lot

Weird color balance aiming the camera straight up

Larger version of the original photo

I had this whole room to myself at the training retreat!

Milky Way Barely Visible in Noblesville

We had exceptional clear skies in Noblesville, IN on May 16 at 4am. I woke up to let the dogs out and it was like 40 degrees (F) with absolutely no wind. Perfectly clear skies. I saw Saturn and Mars blazing in the tail of Scorpius, and my favorite asterism the celestial teapot in Sagittarius.

I tried for a couple Milky Way shots and was surprised I actually could see some nebulosity even from my backyard. Noblesville is NE from downtown Indianapolis, so the light dome from the city is obvious - so seeing ANY part of the Milky Way is pretty cool.

Before (R) and After (L) processing in Adobe Camera RAW - not a lot to work with, but the fact that I caught it from my own backyard is pretty cool.

Single frame, Canon T5i, ISO 800, 18mm, f/3.5, 13 seconds on fixed tripod

Single frame, Canon T5i, ISO 1600, 18mm, f/3.5, 10 seconds on fixed tripod

Single frame, Canon T5i, ISO 1600, 18mm, f/3.5, 10 seconds on fixed tripod

As you can see, I didn't have much to work with - as soon as I turn the exposure and highlights up, the light pollution washes out the Milky Way. Still a cool piece of sky, and definitely reminds me of summer. Here is a screenshot from Stellarium showing the position of Saturn, Mars, and the stars in the constellations Scorpius and Sagittarius.

Screenshot from Stellarium showing the southern sky at the time I took the photos on May 16, 2016. 

Single frame, Canon T5i, ISO 800, 34mm, f/4.5, 6 sec - the Teapot Asterism and M7 globular cluster visible over the rooftops in the southern sky.

Bradford Woods Views of the Milky Way with Canon T5i

This weekend I was co-hosting a Peer Educator retreat for our health and wellness peer educators at Bradford Woods in Martinsville, IN. Bradford Woods is close to the Link Observatory, and I knew it would have better skies than my house in Noblesville, so I brought my camera along.

We had a campfire at night and I could see through the trees that the stars were crystal clear and that it was going to be a great night for stargazing.

When I put the fire out and stepped out into a clearing, I could immediately see the faint veil of the Milky Way. You know it's a great sky when you don't even recognize constellations because there are too many stars!

Canon T5i on fixed tripod, stack of 29 light frames at ISO 6400, f/4.5, 18mm, 10 sec
Total exposure time 4 min 8 sec

Same image as above with the Summer Triangle and Cygnus

The clearing I was standing in was amazing, it blocked out all of the parking lot lights, and all of the lights from the cabins in the park were blocked by the tall trees. One drawback to the trees, however, is that I had no view of the horizon - and missed out on the brightest areas of the Milky Way. The region within the Summer Triangle is nice, and recognizable, but not the brightest bit by far.

Canon T5i on fixed tripod, stack of 95 light frames at ISO 3200, f/4.5, 18mm, 10 sec
Total exposure time 14 min 41 sec

Facing the other direction, and at ISO 3200, I didn't get much nebulosity in the Milky Way, but I did catch our neighbor galaxy Andromeda - which at 18mm looks like a large blurry star.

Cassiopeia and Andromeda rising over the treetops
Canon T5i on fixed tripod, single frame ISO 3200, 18mm, f/4.5, 10 sec

I'll end by saying it's a good sign when the trees in the foreground are actually black at night. I'm so used to seeing houses and orange trees in the neighborhood. Even at ISO 3200, these trees make true silhouettes against the night sky. Very cool!

Milky Way Over Metamora

Finally got around to processing these Milky Way photos from my trip to Metamora. Here are the best ones! I took enough frames of the Milky Way for a timelapse movie, but about half way through my lenses fogged up with dew. I still have a good number, but I'm not sure it's worth making into a short clip.

The sky appears purple because of light pollution and adjusted for white balance in Photoshop Camera RAW.

Single exposure: 18mm, f/4.5, ISO 1600, 15 sec

Single exposure: 18mm, f/4.5, ISO 1600, 15 sec

Milky Way Over Slippery Elm Trail, Don't Take Mediocre Dark Skies for Granted

I got a job at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) so I'll be moving to the Indianapolis area in just a few weeks. Because of this, I decided to try my hand at some Milky Way shots to take advantage of my rather rural location here in Bowling Green. I'd hate to get to Indy only to realize I was sitting under halfway decent skies all these years and wasted them. 

I've been waiting for the bright part of the Milky Way to return to the late evening sky later this summer, but I decided not to wait any longer and had to go out at 3:30am to catch the Milky Way high enough above the horizon. By the time the Milky Way is high around 11pm, I'll already be in Indy!

I took the dog out at 3:00am on May 16 and saw a fairly clear sky with some storms about 10-20 miles to the South. I figured there's no time like the present, grabbed my camera, and headed to the Slippery Elm Trail. I know the trail is closed at dark, but I figured I'd risk it since I've never seen anyone patrolling the path.

Stack of 10 subs, 5 darks, each at 15 sec, f/4.5, ISO 1600, 18mm

Single frame at 15 sec, f/4.5, ISO 1600, 18mm, processed in Photoshop CS5

The above image, before and after image processing

A fun piece of summer sky! Single frame color corrected in Photoshop

Stack of 7 subs, 5 darks, each at 15 sec, f/4.5, ISO 1600, 18mm

I got some pretty good results even with just a few subs stacked in Deep Sky Stacker (DSS). I only took 29 shots (15 seconds each) during my entire session because it was so late, I forgot a head lamp, and because I heard a creepy noise in the bushes next to me. Here is the story I told to my friends on our e-mail chain about my experience:

Last night, at 3:30am, I woke up to take the dog out. The night sky was clear overhead, with some very low clouds to the south producing flashes of lightning but no audible thunder. I looked at several weather apps and decided to seize the moment to take some night sky photos. Since I'll be moving to Indy, I don't want to take for granted the fact that I currently live about 5 minutes drive from some decently dark skies.

I slowly drove through the trailer park behind Walmart and parked as far down as I could along the Slippery Elm Trail. I quietly removed my camera bag and tripod from the back seat and shuffled down the trail beyond the reach of trailer park street lights. Under the highway overpass, I heard my footsteps echo as my pace quickened. I reached a suitable area and looked up to see what looked like a pale swath of clouds arching from the south horizon through the Summer Triangle - it was the Milky Way!

After shooting a few dozen photos, and struggling to find focus with no moon as a point of reference, I heard an unexpected noise about 100 yards in the brush to the southeast of my location. It was a short loud "WOO!" almost identical to the high pitched "woo!" sample in the 1988 smash hit "It Takes Two" by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock (http://youtu.be/vsxsyZqmmlQ)

It was loud enough to echo off the mound of the elevated highway overpass, but I didn't think much of it. It could have been a whistle or a wild turkey or a meth-head yelling "woo!" - so I continued shooting. 5 minutes later I heard it again much closer... "WOO!" At 4:00am in the middle of a field surrounded by young pine trees and honeysuckle, what could be making that noise? I froze to listen, and heard interval twigs snapping through tall grass under what could have been footsteps. I pictured an elk charging out of the brush, or a meth zombie eating my face and stealing my camera. Then I realized, it could also be the Ohio grassman sneaking up to see what I was doing out there in the darkness all alone. My eyes watered. I grabbed my camera bag without closing it and didn't wait to fold up my tripod before making an awkward speedwalk getaway toward my car. It was the kind of speedwalk you make after a 3 hour breakfast at Harris, except carrying an open camera bag and looking over your shoulder.

Did I have an encounter with the Ohio grassman? Ooooh probably not. But even though I had a camera on a tripod ready to go, I wasn't going to wait around to find out.

The end.

My first point and shoot Milky Way photos inside the Summer Triangle

I was visiting with friends this weekend at Lake Roaming Rock, and we ended up having clear skies last night. I did some of my usual star trail photos, and I was amazed by the view to the east above the trees. The Summer Triangle was huge in the sky, and I realized I was in the darkest area I've been all summer. I knew the Milky Way should be visible just inside the triangle, and I could just barely make out a slight wispy white glow.

I was hopeful that this could be my chance to capture Milky Way light on my point and shoot camera for the first time ever. I maxed out my settings at 1600 ISO and 15 sec exposure, hoping to gather as much light as I could.

On my camera's LCD screen, I could barely make out a darker smudge going across the frame. When I got the image home, I played around in Photoshop for about 15 minutes trying to tease the contrast out of the picture. Using the HDR Toning tool under Image > Adjustments, I was able to bring the highlights forward.

Here are the results:

Milky Way in the Summer Triangle using Canon Powershot A3100 IS

Incomplete Summer Triangle (pan slightly left) using same equipment

The Photoshop HDR Toning settings I used for above photos

Ok, so the first two images were of Milky Way features after some very significant processing. Here is a comparison for both images before (straight out of the camera) and after (adjacent to the final product)...

I labeled Vega as an anchor so you can compare the features of the Milky Way through the summer triangle for the before and after images. Both 'before' shots were taken at ISO 1600 for 15 sec with a Canon Powershot A3100 IS. 

For my FINAL comparison, I wanted to see if the mirky over-processed clouds in my pictures were actually from the Milky Way and not just an artifact of all the post production manipulations. Here is a direct comparison with an image by Joe Plocki in 2007. I searched Flickr for a Milky Way image inside the Summer Triangle with a creative commons license. 

Is the noise in my image actually the Milky Way? 

Several of the features look similar, except for the obvious difference that Joe has a much prettier photo than I do. I am able to conclude that I was indeed successful at capturing a very faint image of the Milky Way that became more apparent after messing around in Photoshop for a bit. It is definitely a baby step in my night sky photography career, but a milestone nonetheless. I'm very happy!