Stacking Tracked Milky Way Exposures & Compositing Them With A Foreground
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- čas přidán 27. 04. 2019
- Move-Shoot-Move Star Tracker: www.moveshootmove.com?aff=26
Stacking software:
Deep Sky Stacker (PC): deepskystacker.free.fr/english...
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Registax (PC): www.astronomie.be/registax/
Starry Landscape Stacker (Mac): itunes.apple.com/us/app/starr...
pixinsight (mac): pixinsight.com/
Nebulosity (mac): www.stark-labs.com/nebulosity....
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That's awesome. I actually have a milkyway self-portrait i took back on the same shack around 2004 that got a full page publishing in Sky and Telescope magazine.
Give it about an hour for the 4k to become available... Recently I got asked about stacking my tracked sky shots so I wanted to touch on that in this tutorial. Enjoy everyone and thanks for supporting my channel!
Looks involved, but so did Sequator before I started using it.
Awesome tutorial! Thanks!
This is a superb tutorial. Thanks for explaining the entire process of capturing the foreground and sky, the stacking and the blending in one tutorial.
Very detailed tutorial. Many thanks for sharing the great work.
Just subscribed. This was so informative and easy to follow. Thanks Mike.
love this tutorial. Thank you Mike.
This is an amazing tutorial , just what I was looking for!!
Ah, finally a tutorial that I can understand and follow along to. Thanks!!
Awesome video, really enjoyed it. Many thanks for sharing. Cheers!
That's the tutorial I was looking for. Thank you for this..
Very good Mike, Keep up your work. I have felt that I needed a lot of photos stacked to get good results. You have showed me that it can and is simpler. 5 images at 60 seconds
Yeah, I recommend between 5 - 12 for the best results. At a certain point the stacking plateaus and doesn't really help as much. I believe that's around the 12th photo mark... so anything more than that is really not helping significantly enough. Good luck and happy shooting!
Brilliant video as usual and very very helpful. Thanks Mike 👍
Glad to help!
@@Milkywaymike I have learned so much for this chanel mate. Keep up the great work my man 👍👏
Thank you very much. Fantastic video really helps me out. 👍🏻
You're welcome!
This is really helpful. Much thanks from the uk 👍👍👍
You're welcome!
Just a shame there's too much light pollution anywhere over here to get any decent images eh? :(
Great video... would love to see this updated for the newer versions of LR/PS?
thats an amazing tutorial. i will have my 1st attempt in taking a tracked image tonight and i will def use this tutorial afterwards
Happy to help!
Great tutorial. Thanks Mikey
You're welcome!
Superb video
Awesome job!! Thank you
You're welcome!
This is incredibly informative, thank you so much mate!
You're welcome!
I was only using dark foregrounds and I wasn’t feeling it, but adding the 2-3 minute long exposures for the foreground can really step it up 👍🏼
I used your video technique on my own images worked superb thanks
Awesome!! Glad to help
Nice video Mike, but I need to correct you at 2:55. You see more noise because the exposure is shorter, not because of the ISO
Brilliant and concise tutorial on Milky way blending. I need to work on the blending side of things. I was wondering about overexposing the sky and milky way in a single exposure. I used ISO6400 and 30secs on advice of the organiser on my Canon 100D and 14mm Samyang lens at F2.8. I did not realise that you can overexpose the sky, but my RAW/JPG seemed to show that. The histogram was only about half way along. When I reduced the exposure and adjust white balance etc. I got a lot of detail and contrast back but there was a lack of colour where I expected it. Maybe this was part of the MW that was lacking colour anyway. In another version on a different site and day, my images turned out much less bright (MW and sky), and it was still 30 secs ISO6400 (except my lens may have been set to F3.5 due to an error, not sure at all as it was a few years ago). Any advice would be appreciated, I can even send you a sample RAW or JPG of my ?overexposed sky. Thank you.
Thanks for watching! Depending on what bortle class you were in for each photo can change the brightness of your photo if you are using the same settings. So let’s say you were in a bortle class 4 and your camera settings overexposed the sky and then you shot in a bortle class 2 with the same settings but it came out darker. This is due to the light pollution difference. I think that id what you are inquiring about. You can send the photos to michaelversprill@aol.com and I’ll take a look. Thanks 🙏🏻
awesome -- thank you
Gret vid! Thank you
Thanks for watching!
Once again, ANOTHER great tutorial! I've followed you for two years since my first foray into any sort of photography.
I hope you don't mind, I have a question that I have tried to search but haven't been able to answer. Once I have a tracker (EQ6-R) and I'm all set up and polar aligned and good to go, how to I set it to track the milky way? Every video and source I've seen is DSO related, but I'm currently focusing on tracking the milky way for astro landscapes. Thanks for reading, and thanks for your great channel!
Once you tracker is polar aligned and you've attached the camera on the trackers ballhead, you simply just aim the camera in the direction of the milky way or whatever celestial object you want. It will rotate with the milky way allowing you to track for several minutes.
Thanks for watching my videos!
Funny that half way through the video, I realized I was editing a photo from the same location (Assateague) - Came here to see how to do the foreground
Hi Mike!
Great video :)
I have a stupid question ... How do you manage to have such a clear image of the Milky Way on your tracked photos? I imagine you are moving behind the building to take the Milky Way
so that the building does not obstruct the view?
Thanks !
1/26/2023 thank you
Good work! Hey just curious as to why you did not just light paint the building? Like the shots you did though. We film quite a lot just south of your location on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Found some pretty good dark sites. Have a goodin and keep up the great work!
Great question! I love to light paint foreground subjects as well, but for this shack it was actually getting some nice soft light from some light pollution behind me. The longer exposure helped gather that light as you can see from the front of the shack (steps side) is brighter then the long side of the shack. Also when I light paint I typically will do the same technique of using a low level lighting with a longer exposures at a lower ISO for cleaner results and to capture a good balance of ambient light with artificial light. Good to hear you have some locations... I live in NJ and it's a struggle getting detail from our night skies.
Love your tutorials. With the foreground stacking using smart object - mean in photoshop, do you bother to ever do that for daytime/sunrise/sunset landscapes?
Thank you for watching! Yes, sometimes I stack during other times of the day as well if I want to smooth out some water or reduce some noise in a sunrise or sunset photo.
You are a master at Photoshop. But you knew that.
Dig the vid! thanks Mike. Curious how you arrived at your settings for the tracked images..60sec @ 2500iso f4, i.e...why not 2 or 3 mins at a lower iso? (not that it matters cause clearly it worked great, but wondering the in field process for arriving their). thx
Thanks for watching and that's a great question.. Typically with trackers your polar alignment dictates the length of time. I was testing out a new tracker which I had set up in a way that was not optimal so I wasn't able to pull off a 2 min exposure at that time. After a minute and a half I was getting some bad trailing so I made the cut off 1 minute for that particular set of images. I also like to stop down my lens to around F4 when using a tracker to give me better corner to corner sharpness and then I pick an ISO that works well with those settings and the light pollution in the area. Thanks for watching!
@@Milkywaymike Really cool video and explanations. I am new to trackers, and recently used one in a light polluted area- I shot the Milky Way with settings- 2 min at iso 400 at 2.8 (wide open). The images were well exposed, nothing overexposed but the Milky Way is very flat and I'm having trouble pulling out detail. If I had shot the images at f4 instead of 2.8, do you think that would help with detail and contrast in the Milky Way? Would stacking them also bring out more detail and contrast?
Many thanks for the video. One question: how did you make the timelapse in the end?
The settings of the camera and post-processing.
Milky Way Time Lapse tutorial ---> czcams.com/video/OH48g0q1-Os/video.html In this video that time lapse was D800 14mm F2.8 ISO 5000 Shutter 15 Seconds (I believe around 400 photos).
Given the focal length (=24mm), would you rather shoot at 25000 and track for 60 secs, or shoot at 3200 and track for longer, assuming the tracker is capable of it? I don't know too much about the MSM tracker and how long it can track before the stars start to trail (barn door trackers allow you to go up to 100 secs at that focal length, so I expect MSM to be capable of more, given a decently accurate polar alignment), but I have seen several others use a slower shutter speed (with a different tracker, of course), keeping the ISO
Thank you for the video! Do you still plan to make a review of move-shoot-move tracker?
Absolutely... I have a trip coming up, so I will be away for 5 days and hopefully I get another clear night on one of those days. I wanted to use it a couple times and get a better feel of things before putting out my review. But if all goes well on my next trip then I should have a review up in Mid-May hopefully! Thanks for watching!
@@Milkywaymike Have a nice trip, Mike! Your tutorials are very useful! i'll be waiting for your review and your thoughts about tracker. I'm in the market for lightweight tracker (may be vixen Polarie or msm). Anyway, thank you and happy shooting!
@@Milkywaymike Great video Mike, I got the move shoot move tracker a month ago and have used it over the last new moon phase. I got the rotator plus the laser pointer. The tracker is so small and using the laser to align Polaris is easy. On some shots, I got good quality images on 3 minute tracked.
Mike thank a bunch for all the tutorials. Which tutorial was it where you picked a certain color of the sky and desaturated it? I'm trying to bring down my yellow from the sky without changing the other colors.
I'm not sure exactly which one I did that in since I've done so many tutorials at this point. However, you have a couple different options... you can bring the yellow down using the slider in Lightroom under (hue, saturation and luminance) which allows you only target specific colors. You can also use the desaturate brush in photoshop and target specific areas.
The last option that I like to use is to make a copy of the image in photoshop, switch the blend mode to "color", then select a nearby color on the image you want to change the yellow area to. Then start painting away that yellow away.
@@Milkywaymike The last one thanks Mike
Thanks for the video Mike! I'm currently on the east coast all the way from Nebraska. Can you give me an idea of where on the island you found this shack, please? Thanks!
It's at the end of Ferry Landing Rd, Berlin, MD in Assateague Island.
@@Milkywaymike found it, thanks! Clouds rolled in to spoil the perfect shot, but I really enjoyed that location.
Hi Mike! Love following along to your videos. I have a question for you. When I go to Select and Mask for the refining brush, pretty much nothing happens. It will create a new layer and mask but there won't be any changes.And nothing appears to happen while I'm using the brush in the select/mask window. I've tripled checked every setting I can see on your video to mine in the Select & Mask settings and can't figure out why nothing is happening. At least if something happened I could troubleshoot, but I'm clueless at this point. Have any ideas or maybe another online tutorial that might help? Thanks!
Thanks for reaching out to me....
Sometimes my select and mask doesn't work as well, but then I close it and retry... and then it does work the second time.
If you've tried multiple times without success then you need to contact adobe to see if they can address the issue and if need be, create an update to fix the problem. Hopefully they can take care of that for you ASAP. Sorry I don't have an easier answer or way to fix that issue. I've dealt with Adobe in the past and they are pretty good at solving problems, so definitely give them a call or message.
@@Milkywaymike I'll give it a try -- thanks so much! I'm admittedly new to using Photoshop so sometimes it's a very obvious fix to veteran users :)
Really interesting video Mike, thank you. I'm probably being stupid but I couldn't work out the relevance of merging the shots with the foreground object and creating a star trail when you were going to scrub it out for the milky way image? What am I missing?
When using Smart Objects - Stack Mode - "Mean" it averages the images together creating a cleaner image. One of the things that happen when using stack mode mean besides cleaning up the image is it will also create a star trail since it is blending those photos together.
Sometimes I will use - Smart Objects - Stack Mode - "Median" which is similar to mean but for the stars practically disappear in the sky and become really faint.
Either option isn't for the sky, but for the foreground for noise reduction. To see how well it works take 10 shots at ISO 6400 of anything, it can be in your home and then follow those steps and check out how well it cleans up. Good luck and happy shooting!
@@Milkywaymike Understood - thank you!
Hi Mike great video again!I would like to ask a question about stacking in starry landscape stacker.Most of the times I don t have any issues ,recently I tried to stack 10 tiff photos and after stacking I have a strange square pattern like a grid .Is something wrong with stacking ?thanks in advance
That's really odd.. .I've never had an issue like that so I can't say exactly what the problem is. The developer of the SLS typically responds in a timely manner if you send him a message. Open up SLS and go to help on the top of the program and then click "email developer". Hopefully you can get some answers to solve that problem.
Thank you for your quick reply! It seems strange I will send email to developer! Keep your inspiring work!
Great video. Whenever I try to use the refine brush tool, it doesn’t do anything when I paint over the image. All the settings look to be correct. Any ideas?
Sometimes it can be an issue from the latest update. You may have to se d Adobe a message to see if they can fix it or download an older version of PS
Mike nice stuff . Can u do milky way shoot w full moon … specially are there any filters that can block moon light ?
No the moon light is too bright so it diminishes the visibility of the MW. You can do a Milky Way during a crescent moon.
You can put ND filters on your lens but it won’t help you see the MW during a full moon.
Hi there! I had a few questions. What were the exposure settings for the foreground images? Were they the same exposure settings and just multiple images? Or different exposures each? I assume the sky had multiple images at the same exposure settings? Could this be achieved by import the same file multiple times instead of taking each separate photo?
All the exposure settings are in the video at the Top Right-hand corner in lightroom. They were multiple images at similar exposures around 100 - 150 seconds each. To your last question the answer is no, you can't just use multiple copies of one photo. I've tried this and doesn't work because the pixels of a photo shift around each time you take a photo. That pixel shift is what helps you when stacking images. If you just copy 1 photo several times and stack it, the pixels are all in the same location so it doesn't do anything. To get a better understanding of stacking check out this article: keithwiley.com/astroPhotography/imageStacking.shtml
@@Milkywaymike Nice so same setting for the foreground images and same settings for the sky just multiple exposures stacked. Awesome, I need to try this! thank you so much for responding! :)
Awesome video Mike! I was wondering.... how long is the logest exposure you can do and still stack them in starry landscape stacker? I did a few 2 minute shots for the first time and when I opened starry landscape stacker it had a message saying that it most likely wasn't going to work and might crash my computer lol. I would love to hear your thoughts and best practices when shooting long tracked exposures with the intention to stack them. Aloha and mahalo!
Actually I just read the message it gave me again and it appears one issue is that the images I shot were at 70mm and it doesn't recommend using starry landscape stacker past 50mm and to use Starry Sky Stacker. This brings up a new question if you have used Starry Sky Stacker and if you think its worth buying. But also the message does say that it recommends using shutter speeds no longer than 30 seconds for best results. I see you are at 60 seconds. I wonder how that's working for you compared to stacking more shots at higher ISO at 30 seconds or less.
@@wademorales Starry landscape stacker is worth it in my opinion because the software is priceless for those that want cleaner night skies. As far as the warning signs / limitations the software has... I tend to proceed without issues. I've stacked 3-6 tracked milky way shots that varied in exposure time (1-4 minutes each) without the software crashing. Now typically I am doing this with a 50mm lens or wider though. Anything over 50mm I haven't tested so I can't say for certain that the software won't crash on you.
Here are MAC starry landscape stackers for more telephoto lenses:
Lynkeos: Free
Pixinsight: $260
Nebulosity: $95 (free download trial)
Other option is to create a parallel on you Mac that allows you to run Windows programs. Then you can use Deep Sky Stacker which is a free program people like for windows.
Hope this info helps you out. Good luck!
Milky Way Mike I appreciate the info! I think the message popped up because the images were at 70mm. (Starry Sky Stacker) the alternate to (Starry Landscape Stacker) worked amazing for the 70mm shot. I wonder what else that program can do?
One last question.... I purchased the move shoot move tracker and I’m having second thoughts on getting the i optron pro. After buying the polar scope for the move shoot move $79 it’s just about the same price. The i option looks fairly portable and for some reason I am assuming it’s built better and will most likely last longer. The micro adjustments look like a plus considering adjusting polar alignment with the move shoot move seems pretty tough. The laser gets you in the ball park which is nice but I feel alignment through the polar scope is probably the way to go just to be sure. I also have a 100-400 and combined with my camera weight and ball head it’s just barely shy of the 6.6 pound capacity of the ioptron. Might be fun to do a little deep space stuff.
Most of my stuff is wide angle and the move shoot move is appealing because of its size compared to many of the trackers out there I most likely wouldn’t carry around. Just worried about the reliability of the move shoot move and I remember you saying that sometimes it didn’t track once and a while for you. In your opinion for the same price what would you rather use?
Thanks for the info! Your videos are my go to for night sky shooting. Great work
Starry Landscape stacker has several stacking methods, some of which give very strange results. Do you always use the same method? And if so which one. It looked like min noise in the video (which makes sense)! Thanks.
Nick Noble yea I played around with some of the other settings but min noise seems to give me the the results I prefer at the moment.
@@Milkywaymike I don't find min noise ( I do find Min horizon noise). I checked to see if I have the most recent update and I do, but I saw that in the App Store there is "Starry Sky Stacker" , also by Ralph hill. Am I missing something. Also looking forward to hearing about move-shoot-move star tracker. Thanks again for the instruction. Nick
Mike, how on earth do you get those orange and brown tonalities of the core right from the start, even before making any edits? I use similar camera settings as you, in a low light pollution environment, with a respectable 14mm at f3.2, full frame camera, and my milky ways are all greyish and dull!
Could be white balance... I tend to keep my Milky Way on the warmer side.
@@Milkywaymike Yes, that's the first thing I always change, along with the tint. Will try with higher ISOs as I tend to underexpose everything. But I doubt color has much to do with that. Maybe southern hemisphere isn't as interesting as northern??
@@mjfrascaroli yeah I’m not sure, since I don’t have a modified camera or anything special. I definitely get much more detail when tracking vs stacking which allows me to get more detail out of the Milky Way
@@Milkywaymike I always thought tracking only reduced noise, but many youtubers say helps a lot with the colors as well. I'll get one right now! Thanks, Mike
yo where on google maps/Earth is that building? I went to Assateague and shot one weekend at the beach and found the old road interesting but I didn't see this building. Bay side?
So is the star image just taken from above this building? In the star image at the bottom it doesn't match the roof of the building in the foreground shot. Or was the star image from a different place, angle, or time?
The star tracked image was taken from the same location on the same night. There is a walking path at this location that opens up overlooking the marsh so it is free of obstructions that I used to track. The milky way does rise behind that Shack in virtually the same angle as well.
@@Milkywaymike Ah cool thanks for explaining that. Awesome videos as always, love your content man
Weird question, but how do you avoid the star trails with such long exposures for the foreground
The stars did trail in the foreground shots and then I replaced the sky. You can see it in the video if you look closely.
i cant get it to work . problem is you take an ideal MW foto with no opsticals on the horizon . i dont have that here there are Always threes ans so on in the frame so you cant blend . i try it for 2 years now but al the thutorials are with easy images .. try it with complicated images and you run in to problems .
I want to do an image like this but shoot the foreground during blue hour
Go for it brotha!!
How are you able to do a 200 sec exposure?
Star tracker
Where's the link to your PayPal account? I owe you for saving me money on a Creative Live course!
You’re too kind!! If you’re feeling generous my paypal email is michaelversprill@aol.com Thanks for supporting the channel.
All that work and then a incorrect reflection in the water :(
Nice video :)
Got to 5:00 and undertood i can't use this as I have a pc...
You can use Sequator (pc equivalent) and follow the steps outlined in this video to achieve the same results.
I'm blown away how many people do not read the literature on Starry Landscape Stacker. You DO NOT WANT TO HAVE YOUR NOISE REDUCTION OR SHARPENING ON BEFORE STACKING!!!! THAT IS THE POINT OF THE SLS SOFTWARE. It cancels out the noise! If you use color noise reduction, then SLS will not be able to find the random color noise specks in the image to remove! And you will lose all those fine color nuances in your stars. Also you will have more luminance noise! If you use the Luminance Noise slider before SLS, you will have blurred out a significant amount of detail SLS is trying to increase! And lastly, is you SHARPEN your sky before using SLS, you will significantly increase luminance noise! Sharpening, and noise reduction is to be TURNED OFF, AND THEN used AFTER running SLS. That way you have a superior file to do it on. You could double or more the quality of your images by following the websites protocol.
Warter.
Wooder!
@@Milkywaymike I love the way some people say that. Hey man, great photo! I'm getting into deep sky imagine and milky way imagine too.
All that to bodge together a blatant composite? You may as well throw in a few dinosaurs and an erupting volcano. :/
geonerd lol 😂 have you ever used a star tracker? It blurs the foreground sooooo yes, you need to composite the foreground with the sky. This is not a secret, but the reality for those wanting to create higher quality Milky Way images. If it’s not for you then don’t do it.. simple as that 👌
great tutorial! Thank you