Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Night Skies

I know, I've been among the missing for a while.  Truth is, I haven't had anything new to report and I don't like to keep repeating myself.  Lately I have been trying my hand at night photography.  This required getting to places with darker skies than what I find near home.  So here are some images of the night sky at our cabin in the Eastern Sierra and at Tomales Bay.


From the deck at the cabin I tried some sky trails.  I was fortunate that polaris was directly behind one of the trees.  This was a one hour exposure which puts a lot of "noise" in the image.  I compensated for this by using the camera's long exposure noise reduction feature.  This takes the same amount of time as the original exposure to complete so unless I want to be up all night, I had to get it right the first time.


I also wanted to get some images of the milky way.  This required a high iso (6400) which also creates a lot of noise.  Since I shot the image in raw I was able to greatly reduce the noise in Adobe Elements raw image processor.


At Tomales Bay I tried again to capture the Milky Way.  I'm not sure if the difference was due to my processing, the atmospheric conditions or the use of the high iso noise reduction in the camera.  I need more practice but it will have to wait until spring as the Milky Way will soon be too far to the west during the night time hours.

Find more sky views at SkyWatch Friday.

12 comments:

Sallie (FullTime-Life) said...

Martha, it is so good to see you here again. ..I was happy that your post link popped up when I opened FB this morning.. it felt just like when you get a real snail-mail letter amid the pile of junk...something worthwhile! Your night photography is stunning. I’m in awe. Wonderful to have your cabin in a location where the sky actually shows up. That is something so many of us seldom witness in these days of artificial light. Thank you for reminding us so beautifully of what it is really like.

carol l mckenna said...

Love the awesome stars ~ creative photography!

Happy Day to you,
A ShutterBug Explores

Grandma C said...

Beautiful night shots! I have been wanting to learn how to photograph the night sky ever since my trip to the Acient Bristlecone Pine Forest 4 or 5 years ago.

Jim said...

Great star shots.

Lady Fi said...

Wow! Gorgeous shots.

Gaelyn said...

You are an inspiration to try something new. Night photography has been on my list for a while. These are great shots. Hope you'll be posting some more.

Jocelyn said...

Beautiful sky!

fredamans said...

AH-mazing!!!

Spare Parts and Pics said...

Hey, welcome back! Wonderful shots, and I especially like the star trails. I've tried a few of these (using multiple exposures and "stacking"). They come out pretty good, but it's a lot of work!! You are inspiring me to try more.

Diane AZ said...

Beautiful night skies!

betty-NZ said...

Nicely done!

Angie said...

Ooh. I might have to try this - we have very dark skies right at our house … thanks for sharing the inspiration. Joining you from Skywatch.