As I mentioned in an earlier article on noise reduction, it’s Milky Way huntin’ season for capturing the Galactic Core. To capture the arch, I use a panorama technique. In this instance, I captured and stitched together eight image slices for the stars and the foreground.
Panorama equipment
A panorama head makes working with multiple layers of panoramas way easier to stick and blend. The pano head allows for the lens to be mounted and rotated over the light entry point. Learn more about how to set up for the light entry point for panorama images. I’m using a relatively inexpensive head from Neewer that is no longer available. If you only do a few panoramas but want to tilt the lens or do multi row, here’s a similar priced head that will work for you. You’ll want to add a focusing rail as well.
4. Light entry point on this lens; 5. Setting for tilting camera for multi rows.
If you do a lot of panorama photography with multi rows or blends you might want to buy the higher end panorama equipment. What’s the difference? Higher end gear such as the Nodal Ninja pano heads have tighter tolerances and the alignment is better when capturing your images. Tighter tolerances make working on your stitching much easier.
Panorama capture
There was a need for two separate panorama captures. One set of eight images for the foreground and a second of the exact same scene for the stars. Each of the panoramas are overlaid to blend together. Another important part of the panorama head is the click stop on the indexing rotator head. It helps with alignment and consistent overlapping of frames.
To help handle noise issues, I made ten frames of each section for stacking before stitching. This was aided by the internal intervalometer of my OM-1 camera. I set it to capture 10 frames. Each time a sequence was complete it restarted a ten frame capture where another click was added to the pano head for the next frame.
Post production in Photoshop Photomerge
Images with noise reduced are stitched together using Photoshop. Use Photomerge with Blend Images Together and Remove Vignette boxes checked. Once the two panorama images are complete they are overlaid and blended together. Selections, Masks and the Transform Tool merge the two panoramas together.
With the panoramas blended, it’s time for some color correction and dodging and burning for finishing touches.
Lots of time, energy and work go into making night sky Milky Way panorama images. In my opinion, it’s worth it when you see the final results.
Want to learn about capturing the Milky Way and night sky photography? Join me in my Sedona, Arizona Milky Way Workshops.
Yours in Creative Photography,
Bob