Night Sky Photography Guide

NIGHT SKY PHOTOGRAPHY GUIDE

By John Keefover of Keefography


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Ever look up into the beautiful night sky and try to take a photo on your phone? Chances are it’s not going to come out quite how it looked or felt like at the time. Though newer phones do have some pretty good night photography capabilities. Digital Cameras can however pull out way more detail and light compared to the human eye. It’s really exciting seeing what’s on the back of the LCD screen after pressing that shutter button in the dark, and it gets addicting! I’m by no means an expert Astrophotographer, but here’s all of my thoughts & research I’ve put into this genre of photography. This gets pretty in depth and a bit technical, but it also covers all of the basics for those of you interested in trying this for your first time. I’ve had quite a few people ask me for some assistance on this topic so I hope it helps you in some way!


My first Milky Way photography attempt. North Shore of Lake Superior, Minnesota.At the time I was ecstatic, and looking back it’s still pretty good! There was a bit of cloud cover unfortunately and there’s no recovering those deep black shadows, but…

My first Milky Way photography attempt. North Shore of Lake Superior, Minnesota.

At the time I was ecstatic, and looking back it’s still pretty good! There was a bit of cloud cover unfortunately and there’s no recovering those deep black shadows, but there’s some neat air glow and Jupiter was just absolutely glowing! Since that night I’ve learned so much. Continue reading to find out what so you don’t have to go through as much trial and error as I have!


 GEAR

Camera: Pretty much any newer digital camera will work for Astrophotography. The best option would be a newer Full Frame or Mirrorless camera though. The larger sensors on Full Frames handle noise in low light much better than crop sensor cameras, allowing you to crank up the ISO without introducing too much more noise. This guide is mainly written with Full Frame in mind, as well as a general idea of how to use your camera’s Manual shooting mode. I personally use the Full Frame Canon EOS 5D Mark IV.

Lens: Preferably as wide of a focal length and aperture you can get. f/2.8 is the ideal recommended aperture, though larger apertures of f/2, f/1.8, f/1.4, etc. will allow even more light into your photo. Your focal length also determines how much light you can let in as well. There’s something called the Rule of 500 that is used to calculate shutter speeds. You take 500 and divide it by the focal length you’re shooting with. If you’re not using a Full Frame camera the math is slightly different so look that up depending on your camera. That number gives you the length of exposure you can use. If you go longer than that you will start to get star trails in your photo making the stars a bit blurry and not as sharp. Say I’m using a 16-35mm wide angle lens. 500 divided by 16 is 31. In theory you can take a 30 second exposure without your stars trailing. That’s just a guideline though as I still find some slight movement when shooting at 30” without a star tracker. I personally use the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 III USM or the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 II US.

Tripod: Any strong, sturdy tripod and ballhead. You’ll be shooting long exposures of around 15-30 seconds or longer, so you don’t want your camera to move at all or your photos will be blurry. We want the stars to be as sharp as possible. I have 2 tripods that I mainly use. One is for hiking and backpacking that is extremely lightweight, but it’s not very study. Minor winds or waves can easily shake it causing blur. The other is a very heavy, durable tripod. I use this for long exposures if I don’t have to hike very far. Having leveling bubbles on your ballhead will help ensure your horizon is level. Lightweight travel tripod is this affordable Benro Slim Carbon Fiber.

ACCESSORIES

L Bracket: An L bracket is an attachment that connects to your tripod plate on your camera. There’s another tripod plate on the bottom of it, and it also hooks around to the side of your camera adding a tripod plate on the side. This allows you to rotate your camera from landscape to portrait composition without having to crank your ballhead and tripod over to the side. It makes setting up your vertical shots so much easier, especially if you’re going to be shooting any panoramas. I highly recommend one for any tripod usage. I use the Kirk L Bracket made specifically for the Canon 5D Mark IV body and allows access to all ports on the camera. There are other cheaper, more universal L Brackets that may not fit your camera perfectly meaning you might have to take it off in order to get to your battery or memory card doors.

Cable Release/Intervalometer: This is a remote cable release that operates as the shutter button. It also works if you have to take an exposure longer than the max setting on your camera of 30” and you have to use the BULB mode setting for a longer shutter speed. This is good because you do not want to press the actual shutter button on your camera to end the exposure. Much like we talked about with having a sturdy tripod, you don’t want any camera movement. Just pressing the shutter button is enough to shake the camera and cause blur while your camera is taking the picture. You can also use the 2 second timer delay setting in camera so that it won’t take a photo until 2 seconds after you press the shutter button. That’s usually enough time for the camera shake to stop. It won’t help if you need to use the BULB mode though to stop the exposure. In that case use a Cable Release. If you don’t have one some cameras have built in Wi-Fi or Bluetooth that can connect to your phone. You can then use your phone as a cable release to control the shutter and change other settings as well. Make sure you sync your phone and camera before you go out so you’re not troubleshooting in the dark trying to connect them. Be mindful that using the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection will drain your phone, and camera battery much faster, especially if it’s cold out. I use the Pixel Timer Shutter Release but just make sure whichever one you use works with your camera.

Headlamp: It’s going to be dark out. You need a strong light to get to where you’re going and see what you’re doing. A handsfree headlamp is best so you can freely operate your camera with both hands. You can also use this to light up your foreground if that’s something you want to do with your shot. More on that later though. You’ll generally want around 250-500 Lumens. Please be mindful of your light if you’re shooting around other people. You can easily ruin their shot with just a quick pass of your light. Though having a light is helpful, it also makes it harder for your eyes to adjust to your surroundings, and to see the sky above you. Get to know your camera as well as you can so you can navigate around the buttons in the dark without the light on. If your headlamp has a red light setting on it that’s even better! It’s easier on your eyes in the dark and will help keep your night vision. Make sure your headlamp is charged before you head out, or you have extra batteries on hand. I use the Petzel Aktik Core 450.

Warm clothes: It’s nighttime, and you’re going to be standing around waiting for a long time while your camera takes long exposures. Make sure you’re nice and toasty or you won’t enjoy the experience as much! Thick wool socks, boots, base layers, jackets, beanie, touchscreen gloves with hand warmers in them, etc. Whatever you need for all conditions!

Gaffers Tape: Seems like a weird mention, huh? It’s pretty useful though and doesn’t leave sticky residue on your gear. It’s great to put a piece of tape on the focus ring of your lens to lock it into place once you find your focus (more on that below). It’s a pain to have to readjust your focus if you accidentally bump it! It’s also good to put a small piece over the eyepiece of the viewfinder. If you’re taking a really long exposure sometimes just any bit of light shining through the eyepiece on the back of the camera can cause some unwanted effects. You can also cover up any lights that your camera body has. Plus, it’s tape… You can use it for anything!

Batteries: Make sure your battery is charged up before you set off, and you have a backup battery on hand that’s also charged. You’ll burn through a battery quick in the cold taking these long exposures. If it’s really cold put the spare battery in one of your pockets next to your body to keep it warm so it doesn’t lose its charge.

Star Tracker: I haven’t used a star tracker so I really can’t speak from personal experience on the matter. This is a piece of gear that connects to your tripod and camera body that tracks the rotation of the stars, automatically moving along with them once calibrated to your position. This allows you to take much longer exposures without star trails blurring to get a brighter image with more detail, while also being able to lower the ISO to get a much cleaner image with less noise. You’ll have to take a separate shot without the tracker to get an image for your foreground that you’ll have to blend in later. A lot of modern cameras and lenses are so advanced now that this isn’t really an essential piece of gear- especially if you’re just starting out, but it can definitely help make some amazing photos! They cost a couple hundred dollars depending on the model you get.

PLANNING

Now that you’ve got a good idea on what you need to bring, let’s talk about planning. Sure, you don’t really have to do any planning. You could just get the itch to go out and get lucky by pointing your camera up at the sky! By planning your shot though you will not only get a better composition, but better conditions as well.

The best time to shoot the Milky Way is during and around a New Moon phase when there’s no cloud cover. There will be little to no moonlight making for a darker sky and a more vibrant Milky Way. You’ll also want to find dark sites where you are away from light pollution. The Milky Way Galactic Center rises in the South Eastern Sky up here in the Northern Hemisphere this time of year so look for a good composition facing that direction. Lakes make for great foregrounds as you can get a nice reflection of stars in the water if it’s calm. Rock formations and trees also make for interesting foregrounds as well though they can make for some tricky blending if using multiple exposures. If you want to shoot Star Trails the way to get them in a perfect circle is to aim your camera towards Polaris, or the North Star. The stars rotate around that point in the sky making for a very cool symmetrical circle pattern. If you don’t know where Polaris is in the sky you can use an app like PhotoPills or any other star identifier. You can do Star Trails anywhere you want they just won’t be in the circle shape if not pointed towards the North Star. If you want to shoot Northern Lights and get lucky enough to see them, find a good foreground composition facing North. Again a lake is a great spot because those vibrant colors will reflect in the waters.


Northern Lights reflecting in a lake. North Shore of Lake Superior, Minnesota.Once I checked the Northern Light Aurora Forecast app and saw some Aurora activity predicted later in the night I set off in search of the Northern Lights! These were much…

Northern Lights reflecting in a lake. North Shore of Lake Superior, Minnesota.

Once I checked the Northern Light Aurora Forecast app and saw some Aurora activity predicted later in the night I set off in search of the Northern Lights! These were much fainter in person, but the camera is able to pick up all of that light. I scouted this location on Google Earth by looking for a lake with no houses and an access point to the south of the lake with a clear view looking North. It resulted in this image of the trees and Northern lights reflecting in the calm waters.


Apps

Clear Outside: This is my go-to weather app and it’s free! It breaks down lots of weather variables that are good to know for Landscape Photography. To use this app make sure at the bottom of the screen you select “Current Location” or set it to where you’re planning on shooting with “Locations” because the default home screen is set in the UK. For astrophotography you’re mostly concerned about cloud coverage and the moon phase. Cloud coverage is broken down in the app towards the top of the display under “Total Cloud.” 100 means it is completely cloudy. You obviously don’t want that. We want clear skies for Astrophotography. If it’s around 0’s across the board you’re good to go! The top right of the screen shows the Lunar % with a picture depicting what phase the moon is at. Ideally as low as you can get around the New Moon phase is best. A full moon will wash out the Milky Way and you won’t be able to get as good of a shot of it. Though full moonlight can light up foregrounds nicely for a completely different style of night photography.

https://darksitefinder.com/ or a mobile app such as Light Pollution Map - Dark Sky: This will show you where to find the darkest skies around you, and the Bortle Scale of light pollution around cities and towns. The farther away from light pollution you are the darker the skies and brighter the Milky Way will be. Even then you may still get some faint yellowish light pollution glow on the horizon of your photos if you’re shooting in the general direction of a city or town.

Northern Light Aurora Forecast: It’s worth checking this free app before you head out in the off chance of Northern Lights activity. The free version of this app shows you a short forecast of a couple hours, and a long forecast of 3 days, as well as a graph showing aurora activity on the map. The paid version gives you a much longer forecast, and push notification alerts as well if new activity appears.

PhotoPills: This is THE app if you’re a serious photographer who wants to plan your shoots. You can do SO much with this app. It does cost $10 but it is well worth the price. You can see where the sun or moon rises and sets, where the Milky Way Galactic Center will be and so much more. I’d suggest watching some YouTube videos on it to get yourself acquainted with how complex it is. For this blog though we’ll just talk about the night photography aspects of the app.

You can select the date and time of when you’ll be out and pick where exactly on the map you’ll be shooting. To do this go to “Planner” at the top left of the app. Towards the bottom right there’s a white button with two diagonal squares. Click that and toggle off sun and moon, and toggle on Milky Way and Twilights. Hit done to return to the map. Press and hold on the map to drop a pin. This will show you where and when the Milky Way and the Galactic Center in particular will be visible, as well as when twilight will kick in signifying the sunrise coming. Make sure you have your date selected by pressing the clock towards the bottom of the screen. Once you have the right date of when you’re planning on shooting, move your finger along the chart towards the bottom. This will move through time to the night and when the Galactic Center will be most visible. The grey lines are where the Galactic Center is most visible after it rises from the horizon and then dips below it again. The Galactic Center is the most vibrant and colorful part of the Milky Way. The white circles on the map are the whole band of the Milky Way and the big white line moving between the grey lines is the Galactic Center. Use those to line up your composition. In the top bar under where it says Planner you can swipe over to see information like when sun and moos rises and sets, when the different twilights are, when blue hour and golden hours are, when the Galactic Center is visible, and the max elevation of it as well.

Another great tool in PhotoPills is the Night AR mode. This will pull up your phone’s camera with a Milky Way overlay on top showing you in augmented reality where and when the Milky Way will be from your location. It’s very nice if you’re out scouting a place and pull up the Night AR so you can see if you’re in a good spot when you come back later at night, or when you’re trying to line up your shot in the dark. You can also use Night AR to find Polaris to see where you should aim your camera if you want to create a circular Star Trail image. There’s so much more you can do with the app, but that’s the basics for starting out with Astrophotography.


Milky Wavy Sea Cave. North Shore of Lake Superior, Minnesota.I had scouted this location the day before a New Moon. I checked the Night AR mode in PhotoPills and was excited to see the Milky Way lining up with the mouth of this sea cave! I went back…

Milky Wavy Sea Cave. North Shore of Lake Superior, Minnesota.

I had scouted this location the day before a New Moon. I checked the Night AR mode in PhotoPills and was excited to see the Milky Way lining up with the mouth of this sea cave! I went back later that night to take this photo. This is a blend of the Milky Way photo with another exposure lightpainting the inside of the cave. More on lightpainting later.


Google Earth: This is a good app to get a lay of the land and find some potential new spots that you haven’t been to before. Sometimes there’s even a Street View of a certain location if other people have been there and submitted their photos and locations so you can really see how it looks.

Instagram: Instagram can be a great tool for scouting locations and compositions. Search for places you’d like to shoot and sort through all of the selfies for some landscape photos that stand out to you for good ideas.

If you’re going to be using your phone as a remote shutter by connecting it to your cameras Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, make sure you have the right app downloaded and get it set up beforehand so you’re not troubleshooting in the field. Also be cognizant that your phone’s battery will drain faster than you’d think outside in the cold and dark with your screen brightness turned up when using any of these apps.

SETTINGS

Now that you’ve got all of your gear together, and you’ve used your apps and scouting missions to pinpoint when and where you’d like to shoot the Milky Way let’s talk about HOW you’re going to shoot it.

RAW: This should be pretty obvious to shoot in RAW so that you have control of editing the files later.

Aperture: Shoot wide open as large as your lens will allow. At least f/2.8 is recommended. This allows the most light into the photo.

ISO: I start off with my first shot at 6400. That’s about the limit my camera can handle noise well enough. This will give you a nice starting point and a bright enough image to make focusing easier. If you find that creates too much noise or is too bright decrease the ISO all the way down to 3200 or so.

Shutter Speed: Varies depending on the focal length you’re using. See the Rule of 500 we talked about earlier. For a wide angle lens though 20” to 30” is typically good. After you take a photo review it and zoom in on the stars. Make sure you get them as pin point sharp as you can.

White Balance: This is something you can always adjust in post processing, but I like to set it to Tungsten or Incandescent in camera which is around 3000 Kelvin. This is a nice cooler blue color which is truer to the dark sky and Milky Way.

Long Exposure Noise Reduction: Make sure this setting is turned off inside your camera’s menu settings. You’d think it would be handy for long exposures but in reality it doesn’t help all that much, and the major flaw is that it basically doubles the exposure length. It essentially takes another photo immediately after of a dark frame to blend in and help eliminate noise. During that time you can’t use your camera so your 20” exposure is now 40” and you’ll be standing around a lot longer. We’re doing everything we can to control noise already so don’t worry about that setting. The one time it may be good to use it is if you’re doing a very long exposure for your foreground of around 4-5 minutes. It’ll help reduce noise sensor heat but it’s also going to take another 4-5 minutes taking that dark frame right after. With most modern cameras and lenses and being able to stack and edit out noise, it’s not really necessary.

Self Timer: I use the built in 2 second delay Self Timer on my camera pretty much every time I’m shooting on a tripod, except when doing seascapes because it’s almost impossible to time a good wave with a delay. This will eliminate any camera shake once you press the shutter button since it won’t take the photo for 2 seconds. If you’re using a Cable Release you don’t need to worry about this.

Focus: Switch to Manual Focus. It’s going to be so dark out that your camera and lens won’t be able to Auto Focus on the stars or foreground. Though to get your foreground shot you can shine your headlamp somewhere and then focus on that spot with your lens on auto focus, and then switch it back to manual. In Manual Focus set it to infinity if your lens has that listed on the ring. This will be in proximity to having everything far away in focus. It’s different on every lens and still varies from the listed infinity point. Take your first shot and then dial in your focus more from there. Use the back viewfinder to review the photo and zoom in on a bright star. You want them to be pinpoint sharp. It may take a few tries to really get it in focus. If your LCD is bright enough to handle live focusing on a star while zoomed in on the screen that will help even more.

Image Stabilization - IS: If your lens has this feature makes sure it’s turned off. Since you’ll be on a tripod you don’t need it turned on. If you leave it on the IS feature can actually cause motion blur, since it’s still working to stabilize an image that it doesn’t need to. This is called feedback loop where it detects its own mechanical vibrations and moves around. It will also drain your camera battery even faster.

If your camera has a built-in leveling system you should turn that on in the settings. This will give you a leveling bar on your LCD screen so you can level out your horizon in the dark. Using the leveling bubbles on your tripod’s ballhead also works.


Milky Way over the Baptism River. North Shore of Lake Superior, Minnesota.This is two exposures blended together. One is for the sky at f/2.8, ISO 6400, for 20” and the foreground is blended in with an exposure of 4 minutes at ISO 1600. Continue rea…

Milky Way over the Baptism River. North Shore of Lake Superior, Minnesota.

This is two exposures blended together. One is for the sky at f/2.8, ISO 6400, for 20” and the foreground is blended in with an exposure of 4 minutes at ISO 1600. Continue reading to learn more about that technique.


SHOOTING

Finally, we can actually start shooting! Get to your location that you’ve scouted and find your general composition. You’re not going to get it right away in the dark, and same goes for your focus as well, but that’s ok. Finding a good foreground for the Milky Way is the hardest part. Set up your tripod and camera settings starting off with these recommended settings:

ISO 6400

f/2.8

25”

2 second timer

Tungsten or Incandescent WB

Manual focus set to infinity

Image Stabilization and Long Exposure Noise Reduction turned off

Review the photo to see what adjustments you need to make. First adjustments I would make is the composition. Move to the left or right or raise or lower the tripod as needed to make the shot just right. Once you’re happy with the composition start dialing in the focus more to get pinpoint, sharp stars with no star trailing. If you see slight blurry star trails decrease the exposure length, and if it’s too noisy decrease the ISO. Once you get everything set and the stars are all looking sharp try increasing the ISO and shutter speed to get the image as bright as you can without creating too much noise or star trails. Then take several shots. It’s good to have backups and if you want to try to stack photos in post processing to reduce noise you will want a good amount of around 8 photos or so.

That’s your basic Milky Way sky shot!

Now if you have all night to shoot and want to get technical and be efficient as possible I recommend you take a time lapse during the period the Milky Way Galactic Core is visible. Doing so will give you 3 things: a Time Lapse Video of the stars and Milky Way moving across the night sky, some good shots of the Milky Way to choose from for a singular image, and all of the photos needed to create a Star Trail Image! If you can get to your location early to set up during Blue Hour you can even make a Blue Hour Blend or Twilight Blend for those 3 elements to create a perfectly exposed foreground that has zero noise and full shadow detail! Get there a little earlier and you can also take photos of the sunset as well!

Here’s how to do all that:

Get to your location early and take photos at sunset. Pull up the PhotoPills app on your phone to check out where the Milky Way will be later on using the Night AR mode. Find your composition while there’s still light. Use this light to auto focus on a far-away object in frame where the Milky Way will be. This will essentially be your Infinity Focus point. Switch Auto Focus off to Manual Focus. Now is the time to use that Gaffers tape we talked about early on to lock down the focus ring so you don’t accidentally bump it. Make sure you don’t move or bump your tripod from now on. Wait until the Blue Hour kicks in and take a few photos using the standard Landscape Photography settings to get a properly exposed photo of your foreground subject where the Milky Way will later be rising over. Once you’ve taken a few photos you’re happy with change all of the camera settings to the recommended Night Photography settings above. Turn off the camera and put the lens cap back on, making sure not to move the camera, tripod, or focus ring. Then wait until the Milky Way Galactic Center starts to become visible. Once it does turn on your camera and carefully take off the lens cap(I still always forget about that dang thing). Take your first test shot of the night sky. Make the correct settings adjustments mentioned above to dial in the right exposure. Once set turn on the cameras Time Lapse mode or Intervalometer. Set it take unlimited photos with an interval of one second. Press the shutter to start the time lapse. It will use your camera settings to take a long exposure with a second in between before it takes another one. Let it take photos for at least an hour or two. After that turn the camera off to stop the time lapse. Pack it up and go get some sleep, or stick around for sunrise if you’re hardcore! When viewing the time lapse it won’t look like the Star Trail photo below, it will just be still shots of the stars slowly moving across the sky as you skip through the photos. To create the lines of the Star Trails showing movement there will be lots of editing involved.

If you don’t have all that time don’t worry about it. You can still get perfectly good Milky Way shots with a single exposure. For a good Star Trails shot though it’s best to have at least an hours worth of photos to stack together to create nice movement.


Star Trails over Ellingson Island. North Shore of Lake Superior, Minnesota.This is a Blue Hour Blend Star Trail image using the time lapse method above. I set up early for an evenly exposed shot of the island to blend with the Star Trail time lapse …

Star Trails over Ellingson Island. North Shore of Lake Superior, Minnesota.

This is a Blue Hour Blend Star Trail image using the time lapse method above. I set up early for an evenly exposed shot of the island to blend with the Star Trail time lapse of the sky. The phase of the moon doesn’t matter too much when doing star trails, as long as there are stars visible in the sky. This was taken when the moon was about half full.


If you can’t get to your location early to do a Blue Hour Twilight Blend there are some different techniques you can use to expose for the foreground. One would be to take multiple long exposures with your Night Sky Photography settings that you can later stack together in post processing to help reduce noise.

Another would be to take a very long exposure of 4 to 5 minutes just for the foreground. You’ll need to decrease the ISO though or it will be completely washed out. Adjust the ISO to around 1600. Switch your shooting mode on the camera to BULB and use either your Cable Release Shutter or your Phone’s camera app connected to Wi-fi/Bluetooth to time your exposure. It’s going to feel like eternity while it’s taking the photo. Take that time to just look up at the sky and enjoy yourself! This long exposure on low ISO will create a nice, bright, evenly lit foreground with little noise that you can blend in with your sky photo to help preserve shadow details.

A third option would be to lightpaint your foreground with your headlamp. It’s best to be as subtle as you can with it though as the light can easily be very overpowering and make things look weird and super contrasty. Specifically the greens on trees. Be quick with your light, it just takes a quick pass for the camera to capture that light during a long exposure. Don’t just shine it from right where you are behind the tripod either. Move around and light everything evenly, while also making sure to stay out of the photo itself. Hit trees from the side of your photo to create some real depth and 3 dimensionality. If you really want to experiment you can make some graffiti or artistic patterns with lightpainting by standing in front of your camera and moving around with different colored lights. It’s pretty fun and you can really get creative with it!

Another method of lighting your foreground is by using LED Light Panels mounted on a tripod to evenly and subtly light your foreground or anything else you want highlighted. This is called Low Level Lighting. If you have access to these LEDs it’s much better than using your headlamp or a flashlight. If you’re stacking foreground shots the lighting will be the same throughout, where as that wouldn’t be the case when lightpainting. Like lightpainting with your headlamp you don’t want to aim these panels right at your subject from where the camera is positioned. Place them off to the side of the frame to really accentuate shadows and create dimension. If you put it right next to the camera aiming at your subject the lighting will appear flat and dull.

Even yet another one is to shoot when the moon is full to get a nice bright foreground photo. The sky will also be bright so you might have to composite in a different Milky Way photo from a different night. This could also be a good time just to make a Star Trail image.

That’s mostly all the ways to control lighting in dark skies, but let’s talk quick about Dark Frames to help control noise. We talked a bit about dark frames while briefly mentioning the Long Exposure Noise Reduction setting awhile ago. You can use that sparingly, or you can take your own dark frames! Once you’re done taking all of your photos for the night put the lens cap back on. Take a few more shots using the same settings you were using with the lens cap on. This will create Dark Frames with the same feel to it as your other photos. In post processing you can blend in these dark frames with your other images that have noise in certain spots.

If you’re interested in shooting a Panorama to capture the whole band of the Milky Way or the whole grand vista in your foreground, you certainly can. It works the same way as it does a normal panorama. You might be thinking but the sky is moving how does it stitch everything together? Well it just works. Some editing in Lightroom and Photoshop is in order but you can do it. Make sure your tripod is level and you have all the of the recommended settings on Manual mode so nothing automatically changes when you move the camera. When moving the camera make sure there’s enough overlap with each photo to stitch together. Also keep in mind when shooting to leave space around all of your borders in case there’s some cropping that needs to be done.

If you’re out shooting the Northern Lights your settings will need to change based on how vibrant the lights and colors are in the sky above. I’d recommend starting off shooting around ISO 3200 or lower for 10 or 15 seconds. If the lights are very vivid and fast moving, dancing across the sky, you can do an even shorter shutter speed. Increase your ISO and shutter speed if it needs to be brighter, and don’t forget to find your infinity focus point in all the excitement!

CONCLUSION

This blog slowly turned into a novel so that’s it for now! Getting the gear, planning, dialing in the settings, and shooting is just half of the process. It’s up to you to really bring it to life with editing! Let me know in the comments below if any of this was helpful or made any sense to you. If this is well received I’ll make another blog on the general editing of all of these photos! Feel free to ask any questions as well and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Thanks for reading! Please share with any of your friends you shoot with!