I was waiting 5 months to be able to take a picture of the Milky Way core.
I live in Hungary, and the Milky Way core is not visible here from around September to January. In February, the Milky Way core is only visible for around half an hour, just before the sunrise.
I was waking up almost every day at 3 AM in February to see if the weather was clear, but until February 29, it was cloudy(even if the forecast said it will be clear) or foggy, or the moon was up.
But on the 29th of February, no clouds or fog was visible, so I took my change.
I went to a less light polluted place, it’s a 20 minute walk from my house, alone, at 3:30 AM. Yes, it was scary, because I was in an empty field next to a forest in pitch darkness, away from my town. But I tried not to think about it, I was just trying to concentrate on the phone and think about how great the picture will turn out.
I set my tripod up, took a couple of test pictures to see what’s the perfect shutter speed/ISO combination, and if the Milky Way was perfectly in frame.
After everything was set up, I shot 40 RAW pictures in 20s shutter speed, 6400 ISO with HedgeCam 2(it doesn’t matter what camera you use though, it just needs to support RAW capture, since none of the xiaomi phones support RAW capturing in the stock camera until the Mi Note 10). The images were taken from 4:20 to 4:46. After 4:46, I could see on the images that the sun was rising, (but I still saw total darkness with my eyes) so I had to stop capturing.
After I got home, I auto aligned the 40 RAW images in Photoshop, then I used Median blending. This method is used in astrophotography to increase the details, and to reduce noise. After that, I reduced the light of the smaller stars, to make the Milky Way “pop”, then I made some final touches in Lightroom, like adjusting the exposure, contrast, color vibration, and adding a bit of dehaze, clarity.
In my opinion, all of the suffering was worth it in the end, because this is the best astro image I have taken 🙂
If you want to see my previous attempts, or follow my future works on capturing the Milky Way, you can follow my public Google photos album here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qiQotVtLr2f8Exj38
Whoaa
dude. kudos to u, it’s magnificent
Can you also try using astrophotography using GCam if it would turn out like this too? Been trying astrophotography the past month using GCam but could only see stars because of light pollution. No luck in capturing the Milky Way.
Dude props to your dedication! I envy your work 😁
Holy fucking shit.
I tried it back in November at around the same place
Keep in mind this doesn’t contain the Milky Way core, but it still doesn’t look that promising. But I will try it again when I have the chance
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Images like this one always make me think how insignificant we are. Beautiful shot, man.
Could you see Milky Way with your eyes a little bit or you saw complete darkness?
Yes, you can see it, but only barely
Btw how did you set exposure time in HedgeCam?
Edit: and where is the Raw settings?
You need to enable Camera 2 API in the settings, after that, press those 2 buttons: https://imgur.com/Py1ixJC
For RAW capture, you have to set the image format to JPEG and DNG in the cameras settings. But I’m not sure the Mi 8 lite has Camera 2 API support without system modification.
Thanks, I found it. I actually have OnePlus 7, I will try it ASAP.
That’s crazy
Gyönyörű lett, megérte a sok szenvedést.
I tried using Astrophotography mode on GCam and the Milky Way’s barely visible. Even the RAW image and processed images are unusable (or maybe there was just too much light pollution?). I’m glad I took photos using the native camera’s Pro Mode and took a way better photo compared to GCam’s. It just took some editing (adjusting temperature, tint, selective, saturation, contrast, etc.).
Yes you can
You can’t see it with a naked eye, only very faintly
That’s a lot of effort just for one picture good job
Beautiful work, well done!
This looks great, well done! I would have preferred a better choice of foreground as the subject, but it’s still a very nice photo.
Can you post one of the RAW images to compare how it looked before and after stacking?
You should have used GCam’s astrophotography node! It’s made for situations like this, and also uses Google’s Pixel AI magic to improve your shot.
Absolutely impressive!!!!
wooow
Thank you! Yes, I’m still trying to find to find a better foreground around here.
Here you go: https://imgur.com/RzG6cOE
How do you know when the Milky way is visible in your area? I live in Belgium
I use Star Walk 2 app on my phone
Incredible work man!
That difference is amazing, thanks! I’ll try stacking more from now on.
Amazing work dude
I m only up to 16s shutter speed on HedgeCam Is there any specific configuration except manual mod and RAW setting ?
My camera2api hw support level\_3 and it seems my phone supports RAW capture(Realme 5 Pro) 48mp IMX586
Nope, just set the focus to infinity, and 16s shutter speed should be enough
Thank you
This is awesome!
Hey, I have a question, how did you blend those photos in Ps when stars moved? It should have made star trails or not?
Photoshop can auto align the photos for you. In File -> Scripts -> Load Files into Stack, I add all of the RAW images, then I tick the “Attempt to Automatically Align Source Images” checkbox and most of the time, it automatically aligns the stars just fine for me.
Szép munka 🙂
Thankfully the bear in the woods who kept a watch for clear skies (which are known to attract photographers) was sleeping that night! 😀
Excellent show btw! :3
So I have decided to try it on my own, can I ask what was the light pollution at the place where you shot it? I am asking about SQM value, you will see it when you click on place – please use the map: https://www.lightpollutionmap.info.
Thank you very much buddy. I would like to try it but I dont have any place nearby where isnt much light pollution.
It says 21.70 mag./arc sec2
Wow, thats very unpolluted place…