🐾BillinGlendaleCA
Spring and Summer means it is time for Milky Way Core photography. Unfortunately, I was stuck at home most of the Spring due to needing new tires for the Prius that I could not afford. Late Spring I was able to get the tires replaced and headed back on the road. If you may recall from my last posts on this here blog, I acquired an astro modified camera(the filter that all cameras have to restrict light at the higher wavelengths of the red spectrum being removed and replaced with a filter that lets in more of that nice red light) and replaced my tracker that I could no longer charge. So, I ended up spending most of the Spring working out kinks in my new equipment(the mount that replaced the tracker and the computer that controlled the mount). I also added a dual narrowband filter that clips into my camera behind the lens to help boost the H-alpha emissions from nebula around the Milky Way core(it also has many other uses for deep space photography that you’ll see in later posts).
I first headed out to Red Rock Canyon State Park a bit north of Mojave California. This is one of my favorite places to test things out. It is not the darkest site, but it is about a 2 hour drive from Glendale. The first outing was just to test out my mobile setup away from home which mostly worked well(the battery, the computer, and the mount). My next trip up there, I tested using the computer to control shooting a Milky Way landscape. While this worked, it didn’t work well, so I reverted to just tracking with the mount and using a ball head to frame the shot.
Another photographer suggested we go back to Little Lakes Valley to shoot the Milky Way, while he backed out at the last minute, a different photographer and I made the trip. While planning for this trip, I decided that I wanted to shoot tracked shots by the friendly shores of Long Lake and trying to lug the SA-GTI up there would not work, so I ended up purchasing a smaller tracker the Star Adventurer Mini for just shooting Milky Way(or any wide field) shots. This also allows me to set up the SA-GTI for some deep space shots and shot some wide field shots at the same time.
If you like my shots and want to see more, please consider joining my Patreon at BillinGlendaleCA | creating Photos | Patreon.
On The Road – 🐾BillinGlendaleCA – Summer Milky Way 2024Post + Comments (30)
This was shot without the tracker, just with a tripod and ball head. I wanted to test out shooting a Milky Way shot with just a filter to cut the infrared and UV light and then combine that with narrowband data. While the photo turned out nice, I really couldn’t capture enough useful narrowband data to make it work as well as I would have liked.
