This guide will be a walkthrough of the basics of Milky Way photography. It is best for beginners, but even intermediate and expert photographers might find something new! Plus, I always find it never hurts to refresh yourself on the basics.
Photographer Jason Weingart shot this beautiful composite photo of the super blood wolf moon total lunar eclipse on January 20th and 21st. The image features six stages of the moon that night as it rose from the horizon and became totally eclipsed.
Check out this family portrait of our solar system. It's a composite photo created by a single astrophotographer who photographed the planets from his own backyard in Sacramento, California.
Before we get started, it's essential to understand that astrophotography takes time and practice in order to achieve good results, so don't get frustrated if you don't nail it on the first go.
Montreal-based photographer François Guinaudeau went out a couple of nights ago to shoot Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner during the Perseid meteor shower. As he was capturing photos of the comet for stacking, a shooting star flew into the frame and exploded near the comet. Above is one of the photos that resulted.
The Huawei P20 Pro smartphone boasts the highest-scoring smartphone camera ever evaluated by DxOMark, sitting head and shoulders above its competition with an overall score of 109. Here's how good the on-board Leica triple-camera system is: you can shoot beautiful shots of the Milky Way in the starry night sky.
I normally love to plan my photos and I would have liked to plan a cool shot with yesterday’s moon eclipse. However, when I planned my current trip to Kyrgyzstan, I didn’t realize I would be there with the lunar eclipse of 2018 (bad planning, I know).
It is the hottest time of the day during the hottest month of the year in Montana, but two hundred feet above me a pair of nighthawks sense a change. They dive and twist with a grace somewhere between fighter pilot and falling leaf, air buzzing through their wingtips, raspy calls beckoning night, commanding the sun to set. The single, sand-rock knob that I sit on here in the prairie while I watch their aerial display will hold the heat I feel through my jeans well into darkness.
People ask me all the time how I get my night shots with the stars, so I made a video on the subject. Here are my 7 tips for crushing night photography.
Astrophotography is generally a race against time to capture as much subtle starlight we can before the stars create trails in our images. The movement of the Earth puts a natural limit on how much sharp, subtle detail we can reveal. We have to use super fast, wide angle lenses and high ISO values to see all the awesome detail. Fortunately, a tool exists to circumvent this barrier to reveal more of the hidden magic we have in our night sky.
Mars is brighter than it has been for 15 years this month, and it's so bright that you can shoot its reflection in the ocean. Felix Jäger of Austria shot this 30-second timelapse showing the uber-bright red planet rising into the sky from behind his house.
Mars is closer to Earth and brighter than its been since back in 2003. It's so bright that photographer Abdul Dremali managed to capture this photo of the planet casting a bright reflection on the ocean as it rose into the night sky.
I’m an avid night sky photographer that cut my teeth capturing the stars using the original Canon 6D. I shot with that camera for years until purchasing the Sony a7S (Mark I) after reading about how it could essentially “see in the dark.”
I have captured photos of stars above distant thunderstorms before, but I never imagined I would be able to capture the Milky Way above a nearby thunderstorm. While out storm chasing in Eastern Montana on June 4, 2018, that's exactly what happened.
Photographer and astronomer Juan Carlos Munoz was browsing a flea market in Santiago, Chile, a few days ago when he stumbled across some crystal balls. He bought one for a few dollars and then decided to use it for astrophotography. This "cosmic marble" photo of the Milky Way in a crystal ball is what resulted.
Photographer Dustin Dilworth of D3 Imagery visited Michigan's Tahquamenon Falls at night and captured this beautiful 45-second time-lapse video of the Milky Way rising over the falls, which are known for their brown color that's due to the tannins from sedar swamps upriver.
What would New York City look like at night if there were no light pollution to shroud the stars? That's what this new 3-minute short film titled SKYGLOW NYC aims to answer.
Photographer and filmmaker Elia Saikaly has released a new time-lapse short film titled, Everest. It's a dazzling look at the beauty of the world's highest mountain at night.
Back on January 31st, photographer William Briscoe set up his cameras near Fairbanks, Alaska, and shot this awe-inspiring 360-degree interactive video of a lunar eclipse in the sky above the dancing green glow of the Northern Lights.
Photographer Jonathan Usher of Wellington, New Zealand, recently created this photo of the Milky Way rising from the horizon near his city. But get this: he wasn't using a tripod or any other stabilization -- not even a rock. It's a "60-second exposure" shot handheld.
Looking for exceptionally dark skies in the United States? It seems Idaho is the place to visit. A large patch of land in central Idaho has just been designated the first International Dark Sky Reserve in the country, and it's one of only 12 such reserves on Earth.
After photographing the solar eclipse in Idaho, I couldn't resist continuing my "long-service leave" and returning to Canada's Yukon Territory for some early season aurora hunting in September 2017. I had just two and half weeks (one New Moon cycle) based with my friends and supporters Andrea and Florian Lemphers at Shallow Bay, north of the capital Whitehorse.
Here's a 24-minute tutorial by photographer Ian Norman of Lonely Speck that looks at how you can stack and stitch panoramas of the night sky. Norman says these are his two favorite techniques for maximizing the image quality of astrophotos.
After getting his hands on the new Sigma 14mm f/1.8 Art lens recently, photographer Alyn Wallace decided to take it out into the Elan Valley Dark Sky Park in Wales to put it through its paces. His first test: shooting the Milky Way handheld.
When you’re out taking nighttime landscape photos, one of the most difficult tasks is composing your photos exactly how you want. The reason? It’s simply too dark to see anything.
Here's an 8-minute tutorial from Nature TTL and astrophotographer Matthew Saville about how to photograph star trails. Considered by some as the holy grail of astrophotography, this technique harnesses the rotation of the Earth for captivating images.
Back in September, we shared an 8K timelapse shot using the Nikon D850 in Iceland. Nikon has just released this new 8K time-lapse that shows what the D850 can do at night.
Here's a beautiful new short film by time-lapse photographer Tyler Hulett of Discover Oregon. Titled "Oregon Trails," it shows stacked star trails swirling over the beautiful landscapes of Oregon.
Finding razor-sharp focus when shooting astrophotography can be hard – stars appear as point light sources, and there are no detailed surfaces to aid the eye in achieving focus. The Bahtinov Mask is a widely used tool that cleverly uses diffraction as a focusing aid.
If you point your camera at the sky and film, the stars will arc overhead. That’s because your camera is attached to a giant spinning orb called Earth. This interesting 24 hour time-lapse from YouTuber AlphaPhoenix stabilises the stars by spinning the footage in the opposite direction to Earth’s rotation.