Text and all photos by Jerome Rozitis, including banner image, Amphitrite Point Lighthouse Under the Milky Way.
A good Milky Way image takes some planning. You could head out into the dark with no plan at all and hope for a decent shot, but more often than not the results are likely to disappoint.
Part of that planning is knowing when to go. The Milky Way is visible all year, but in the Northern Hemisphere its core is only visible between March and October. The best time to photograph it is during a new moon, when the sky is darker and the core stands out.
Timing and Exploring on Location
For my shot of the Amphitrite Point Lighthouse in Ucluelet, I used the PhotoPills app on my iPhone to pinpoint the position of the Milky Way core and the best time to capture it. It showed me that on May 9, 2024, the core would be visible between 12:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. and appear to the left of the lighthouse. I started planning this shot at home before going to Ucluelet.
I spent about a week camping in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve and hoped for a cloudless sky on May 9. I went down to the lighthouse during the day and used the Night Augmented Reality (AR) feature on PhotoPills to show me a virtual image of the Milky Way. Swiping left or right on my iPhone moved the time/date forward or backward, which moved the Milky Way in relation to this time. I stood at the spot where I planned to take my image and pointed my iPhone towards the lighthouse while using the Night AR feature. It showed me that at 2:21 a.m. the Milky Way core would be right beside the lighthouse.
My intention was to not only take the shot at 2:21 a.m. but also take other shots with different compositions within the three-hour window that the Milky Way core was visible.
By visiting the lighthouse during the day, I could also figure out how long it would take to drive and then walk to the site, so I would know when to leave my campsite. Because I would be shooting in the dark, I also wanted to be aware of any hazards in the area. The last thing I checked was the weather forecast, using several apps, including Clear Outside and ICSC, which both showed clear skies for the upcoming event. Knowing I would be up for most of the night, I tried to get a few hours of sleep before heading out. When my alarm went off, I poked my head out of my tent to look for stars. The sky was clear, so I packed up my gear and drove the 25 km to the Amphitrite Point Lighthouse. I arrived at around 12:00 a.m. to ensure I had time to set up and do some test shots.
- Sony a7iV camera
- 14 mm prime lens
- 2 tripods
- Headlamp
- Low-level light
- LumeCube light panel
- Extra batteries
- Bear spray
- Air horn
- Timing
- PhotoPills (mobile) with
- Night Augmented Reality (ARO)
- Weather
- Clear Outside (website/mobile)
- ICSC (iPhone Clear Sky Chart Viewer)
- Editing
- Capture One (C1)
- Sequator (Windows only, for noise reduction)
- Starnet++, (Windows, experimental for OS X, remove stars)
- Affinity Photo
- Nik Color Efex
Taking the Shot
My equipment included a Sony a7iV camera, 2 tripods, a headlamp, a low-level light, extra batteries and the other usual camera items. I also had bear spray and an air horn.
I put all my settings in Manual Mode. Focusing at night can be a challenge, and the best approach is to aim your camera at the brightest object in the sky, or across the horizon at a ship or the lights from a distant building. It is important to get this right, so I checked my focus periodically throughout the night. Spending three hours photographing the night sky only to discover later that every image is out of focus can be one of the most discouraging experiences. I set up a low-level light behind and to the left of me to provide some faint illumination for the foreground. I used a LumeCube light panel, which is not much bigger than a deck of cards, and placed it on my second tripod. The LumeCube has a dial to adjust the brightness level, which I usually set between 1% and 5%, depending on how far the light is from the scene. The foreground is always the darkest part of the image, so adding a little light helps reduce noise when bringing out detail in post-processing.
My Sony a7iv has ‘bright monitoring’ in its custom functions but this may be called something a little different in other camera brands. ‘Bright monitoring’ will brighten up your camera screen so it will be much easier to compose the picture. Without it, the scene will look dark and be very difficult to compose, especially when there is no ambient light. The ‘bright monitoring’ does not affect the exposure of the image being taken and I can turn it on and off with a custom button.
I used a 14 mm prime lens and needed to determine my camera settings. From past experience I knew where to begin, and I only had to make some fine adjustments and take a few test shots. In the end, my settings were 3200 ISO, a 15-second exposure, and an f-stop of 1.8. I opened the aperture as wide as possible to let in as much light as possible. When reviewing my test shots, I trusted the histogram rather than the camera’s LCD screen, because the LCD does not display an accurate exposure.
My camera was focused, the histogram looked good, and my settings were in place, so I was almost ready to take the shot. The last thing I needed to do was set my in-camera intervalometer to take between ten and fifteen images, one right after the other. I do this for stacking in Sequator during post-processing to reduce noise. I also set a two-second delay for the first exposure to eliminate any vibration caused by pressing the shutter. I set the camera to take eleven shots and pressed the shutter. It takes a few minutes for the camera to cycle through the sequence, and I usually use this time to look up and be amazed at the night sky.
I had my shot, and I was confident that with some post-processing it would turn out well.
Editing My Shot Step-By-Step
Editing a Milky Way image is time consuming, and I usually work on it over several days or even weeks. My main software is Capture One (C1), which is similar to Lightroom.
Global Edits in Capture One
I imported the 11 images from my Milky Way shoot at the Amphitrite Point Lighthouse into C1, made a global edit on one image, and then copied and applied that edit to the other ten so they were all consistent. I brought up the shadows and blacks slightly to reveal more of the foreground, and I increased the contrast a little. This was the only stage in my post-processing where I edited the image as a whole, and the remaining work was done through local adjustments.
Noise Reduction with Sequator
In the next step, I exported the 11 images as TIFF files into a temporary pictures folder and dragged them into Sequator to reduce the noise. I don’t pretend to know exactly how the program worked. I just knew it did, and that it was fairly simple to use. I separated the sky from the foreground by using the paint brush to mark the sky. I selected ‘Freeze Ground’ and ‘Align Stars’, then clicked ‘Start’. There were additional options, such as reducing light pollution, but I left those off. After about 20 seconds, Sequator produced a new image from the 11 originals, and this was the file I continued to work with.
Star Removal with Starnet++
I always found that all of the stars in my Milky Way shots were distracting and took the focus away from the Milky Way and the foreground. For this reason, I started using a software program called Starnet++, which removes the stars entirely. This was my next step. The program is free and about as simple as it gets. I copied the image that came out of Sequator and pasted it into the Starnet++ folder, then dragged it into the file called ‘starnet++’. The program automatically processed the image, and it took about two minutes to complete.
Blending with Affinity Photo
I opened Affinity Photo (which is equivalent to Photoshop) and brought the new starless image, as well as the previous starred image, into the program. I copied the starred image onto the starless image and changed the blend mode from ‘Normal’ to ‘Pin Light’, which automatically recovered some of the stars and the lighthouse beacon. I was able to bring back more stars by creating a mask. I selected the brush tool with a low flow and opacity and slowly brushed around the important stars and nebulas to increase their brightness. I then increased the size of the brush and lowered the flow and opacity even further, brushing across the entire sky to bring out additional stars. Once I was satisfied with the amount of stars, I cloned a few distracting objects out of the image. The cloning tool works much better in Affinity Photo than in C1.
Nik Color Efex for Filters
Next, I brought the resulting image into Nik Color Efex and used several of the filters to make local edits by using control points. Nik Color Efex has numerous filters, and I starred the ones I use most often. My favourite filter is ‘Glamour Glow’, which gives the Milky Way a dreamlike effect. I used these filters to make subtle adjustments and tried not to overdo their effects. I had spent some time experimenting in Nik Color Efex to learn what worked and what did not.
Finishing Touches in Capture One
Once I was finished in Nik Color Efex, I brought the image back into C1 to complete my editing. I made local edits where I felt an area needed adjustments, such as lifting highlights in some areas, recovering shadows in others, and increasing clarity where it helped. Because I had used such a wide-angle lens, it distorted the shape of the lighthouse, and I used the ‘Shape’ tool to straighten it. I wanted the viewer’s eye to be drawn to the Milky Way and the lighthouse, so I made sure that these areas were the brightest and had the most colour.
Closing Thoughts
Milky Way photography takes commitment and requires patience, and it often means long nights. I love spending time in the quiet and being surrounded by darkness. I always take a moment while I am out shooting to stop and look up into the endless, starry sky, and being able to capture this experience in a photograph makes it even better.
Jerome Rozitis
About Jerome Rozitis
There have been a few constants in my life and most of them involved some type of sport such as soccer, rugby, running and cycling. Photography has always been part of my life, just as it has for many people, but for me it was only a way to document experiences. Six years ago, my wife and I did a bicycle trip in Colombia and Ecuador, and this really got me into birding and took my photography to another level. I’ve been hooked ever since. We returned to Ecuador in 2022 for another 6 months of cycling and photography.
I now mostly shoot nature and wildlife, but I remember about five years ago going up Mt Tolmie to photograph star trails for the first time. I really did not know what I was doing and these were not the greatest shots, but it got me excited about the possibilities of shooting the night sky.
I joined the VCC in 2021 and have learned so much from other members and the numerous workshops and presentations.
Edited by Anke Weber
Co-Editor, Close-Up Digital