Milky Way Dorset

Badger8

Badger8

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Tim
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Good Afternoon Guys and Girls,

I've wanted to try taking a picture of the Milky way for some time, but I've bottled it a few times, as, well, I haven't felt confident enough to try. Anyway, I thought I would give it a go in the next few weeks, but my question is, where in Dorset would you recommend to get some decent pictures? Also, what is the easiest way of locating it?

Tim
 
There are quite a few things around that will locate the Milky Way for you. I find Stellarium easy to use and it is free. It can be set to display the night sky for anywhere on the Earth and has quite a few options, eg you can have the names and or the outlines of the constellations on or off.

You need somewhere that gives you a good view between south and west. At present the Milky Way cuts the horizon in the south west at around 10pm. It will be at a steep angle and arcs across the sky to the north east, with the most interesting areas high in the south west.

Can't suggest any places other than dark parts near the coastal path which would give you the right direction but may be lacking in foreground interest.

Dave
 
Hi Tim & Dave

I'm pretty new to this and attempted this the other night in Hampshire (new forest) The result didn't turn out too well, only due to my paranoid nature :runaway: I didn't hang about too long by myself ha! I'm looking to try again next Monday provided the weather is decent, as I've heard this will be the best time this month to view in at 9pm in the Northen Hemisphere.

I'll certainly use Stellarium as a point of reference to help :D

Jon
 
SirG said:
Hi Tim & Dave

I'm pretty new to this and attempted this the other night in Hampshire (new forest) The result didn't turn out too well, only due to my paranoid nature :runaway: I didn't hang about too long by myself ha! I'm looking to try again next Monday provided the weather is decent, as I've heard this will be the best time this month to view in at 9pm in the Northen Hemisphere.

I'll certainly use Stellarium as a point of reference to help :D

Jon
Click to expand...

Good luck Jon. Im trying to convince the wife to go next week. Where in Dorset aRe you?
 
Badger8 said:
Good luck Jon. Im trying to convince the wife to go next week. Where in Dorset aRe you?
Click to expand...
Thanks Tim, good luck to you also, I have the same task of trying to convince my girlfriend to come along. Durdle door though would be a fantastic shot if you can get it rising through the arch.

I don't actually live in Dorest myself, however not too far from there just in Southampton.
 
You can get shots from all over Hampshire and Dorset.... you just need the right kit.

I use a 5dmk3 and the Samyang 14mm f2.8.

I've even managed to get a shot from the centre of Romsey, of Romsey Abbey and the Milky way. It's not amazing, but it just goes to show you don't need to be in the middle of nowhere to see and Photograph the Milky way.


The Abbey is 4 vertical images stitched together, hence it looks a bit wonky, the samyang distorts like a mo'fo!


Romsey Abbey and the Milky Way by keety uk, on Flickr


This is the Boat House at Lepe....



Lepe Boathouse and the Milky Way II.jpg by keety uk, on Flickr


I've take shots in the New Forest before.... you just need the Milky Way to be over a patch of sky free from light pollution and cloud....

So before you rush off to Durdle Dor, practise first and work out how you actually do it, you'll need a fair bit of planning, when is the next night when there's no moon (you cant get a good sht of the milky way if the moons up), is it a clear night? what's the weather going to be? And where in the sky is the Milky way going to be at the time I'm going to be there....

Oh and how to locate it? It's easy to spot.... give you eyes 10 mins to get used to the light, and look up, its the dull faint cloud running from the southwest to the North.... if you still can't see it, whack the camera up to the highest iso with a nice wide lens and take a photo, it will magically appear!

Don;t expect to see what you see in the photo's. You can't see that detail. It's all in the post processing.
 
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keety said:
You can get shots from all over Hampshire and Dorset.... you just need the right kit.

I use a 5dmk3 and the Samyang 14mm f2.8.

I've even managed to get a shot from the centre of Romsey, of Romsey Abbey and the Milky way. It's not amazing, but it just goes to show you don't need to be in the middle of nowhere to see and Photograph the Milky way.


The Abbey is 4 vertical images stitched together, hence it looks a bit wonky, the samyang distorts like a mo'fo!


Romsey Abbey and the Milky Way by keety uk, on Flickr


This is the Boat House at Lepe....



Lepe Boathouse and the Milky Way II.jpg by keety uk, on Flickr


I've take shots in the New Forest before.... you just need the Milky Way to be over a patch of sky free from light pollution and cloud....

So before you rush off to Durdle Dor, practise first and work out how you actually do it, you'll need a fair bit of planning, when is the next night when there's no moon (you cant get a good sht of the milky way if the moons up), is it a clear night? what's the weather going to be? And where in the sky is the Milky way going to be at the time I'm going to be there....

Oh and how to locate it? It's easy to spot.... give you eyes 10 mins to get used to the light, and look up, its the dull faint cloud running from the southwest to the North.... if you still can't see it, whack the camera up to the highest iso with a nice wide lens and take a photo, it will magically appear!

Don;t expect to see what you see in the photo's. You can't see that detail. It's all in the post processing.
Click to expand...

Very nice photos there Keety I actually seen the one of Lepe on Flickr before when I was searching on new forest. My attempt very poor one was done at Lepe.

The lens I've got is what came with my camera, Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 STM IS. I understand it should do the trick but possibly? I've seen some great shots taken with the aperture set to f/3.5.

Correct me if I'm wrong, this is all a massive learning curve for me.
 
It will work ,but you won't really have a chance of getting a really good shot with that.

You'll need a wider lens to really capture everything. You'll be restricted to sub 30 seconds exposure time, otherwise the stars will start to blur and you'll get trails.

You also need to capture as much light as possible. So you'll need a high iso (3200) at least. So you'll need a camera that can handle high ISO with low noise (so full frame ideally) and also a fast lens, f2.8.

Before my current setup I was using a 40d with the sigma 10-20 lens. Stuff came out ok, but not how I was hoping. The jump to full frame and a faster lens saw an amazing difference in the results.


Here's a couple of pictures shot with that setup, these were on really really clear cold nights, so about as good conditions as you could get... Although it could be argued I wasn't really that clued up on what I was doing.... (I'm still not tbh!) but this is what got me interested and I was amazed that you could see the Milky Way just outside of Southampton...


Stoney Cross Milky Way by keety uk, on Flickr


Small things by keety uk, on Flickr
 
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As my DSLR is a canon 700d I know it's got a high ISO value. Certainly not any where near the benchmark of a 40d I will certainly look into getting a wider lens with a faster aperture but just hoping that what I've got now will get me a good start. Any tips on being able to focus infinity with out having that function? I assume something like auto focus on holding down the release button and turning the focus ring manually at the a bright object in the sky and then set to manual focus on the lens?
 
put the lens in manual focus, infinty will be on the focus scale, its the infinty sign (a sideways 8)... failing that use live view and zome in, focus on a star, keep fiddling till its perfectly round...
 
Cheers Keety for your advice I'll give that a whirl and see what happens :D
 
I've been to Durdle Door trying to get a Mily Way shot. It was a terrible photo but I enjoyed it anyway lol. If you want to find dark areas where light pollution is less of an issue, then this map shows where the dark areas are. Although after looking at Keety's impressive work, I'm not so sure you need it to be that dark to get great photos!
 
Not to confuse anybody but if light pollution is a problem you should try image exposure stacking - there are plenty of free software about. If you don't know how to add exposures together just google your question as there are very good videos on YouTube etc about how to do this.
Hope this helps
James
 
If all you want to take with it are pictures of the Milky way, then yes. Don't expect to use it for anything else as it's got some nasty distortion on it.

It's wide, fast and best of all, the manual focus for infinity is spot on, with the canon lens's you can focus manually on infinity but then you tend to have a bit og five, so this you just whack all the way round and you know you're on infinity...
 
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