Milky Way Over The Cornfield, Oakwood Ill.

[Don Quixote]

Milky Way....

Camera Piggybacked to SW 100 Evostar on LXD75 mount

Second Image

30 seconds
Nikon d810
18 MM Nikon AFS Nikor
f 3.5
ISO1600

First Image

30 seconds
200MM
f5.6
ISO 1600

[bladekeeper]

Nice! These are great, Mark! I gotta try this.

[OzEclipse]

Great shots Mark but the captions say one image is taken with an 18mm the other with a 200mm.
It looks to me that both images look to be taken with the same 18mm wide angle lens?
Can you also post the 200mm shot?

It also looks like the auto white balance colour temperature is shifted way too warm. This happens commonly when the camera's auto white balance gets the night sky colour temp wrong. Nothing wrong with the base data, just the display settings. Best corrected on the original raw image using a raw processor but I've had a go at it on your posted image using photoshop.



thanks for posting

cheers

Joe

[helicon]

Some nice photos there Mark. Thanks for the share.

[Don Quixote]

Great shots Mark but the captions say one image is taken with an 18mm the other with a 200mm.
It looks to me that both images look to be taken with the same 18mm wide angle lens?
Can you also post the 200mm shot?

It also looks like the auto white balance colour temperature is shifted way too warm. This happens commonly when the camera's auto white balance gets the night sky colour temp wrong. Nothing wrong with the base data, just the display settings. Best corrected on the original raw image using a raw processor but I've had a go at it on your posted image using photoshop.



thanks for posting

cheers

Joe

Thank you Joe. This is great advice and teaching. I really appreciate this.
You are of course correct on the WB. As soon as I read your comment I realized I had completely neglected this aspect.

I will go into the NEF data and make changes and repost. It looks like everything was shaot at 5300K.

Do you know if the conversion of NEF to DNG looses anything in the data? I have to convert here at home as I am running PS5 and it does not support thr newest Nikon NEF format for some reason.

I just checked myself, and I did make a mistake in the labels. They are both taken at 18mm.

[Bigzmey]

NIce shots Mark!

[OzEclipse]

Hi Mark,

>Do you know if the conversion of NEF to DNG looses anything in the data? I have to convert here at home as I am running PS5 and it does not support the newest Nikon NEF format for some reason.

DNG is a flexible vessel that can hold any form of raw data in a more space efficient form. My Pentax cameras write natively to DNG. For the past 12 years, I have set my cameras to capture and write to DNG format directly which saves a lot of time in conversion. That is I don't write to the camera manufacturer format then convert, the camera writes straight to DNG. So my situation is different to yours.

The NEF-DNG conversion does throw out some metadata. You still have the NEF files to go back to if necessary and the conversion should not result in any noticeable losses if you are subsequently processing converted files in PS5.

I'd refer you to these two articles :
https://www.photoup.net/differences-bet ... -png-jpeg/
provides a general description of DNG.

https://petapixel.com/2015/07/16/why-i- ... le-format/
describes the problems or losses that can occur by conversion to DNG. However the problem or loss noted occurs with Capture One, a raw processor & workflow package aimed at professional studio photographers that can extract more from your data. A license costs around USD25/month or USD350 outright.

If you don't even use current Adobe products, then I would guess that in using a DNG converter, this problem will not affect you and that you won't notice any difference processing in PS5.

regards

Joe

[Moreflying1]

Beautiful shots!

[NikkiT]

Great photos!
Interesting thread!
Thank you!

[Don Quixote]

Here is another shot which I processed with CaptureOne using the native Nikon NEF file...first time to use this tool.
The second image, for comparison, is an example of the DNG file prior to processing in CapOne.

It is astounding how much data is contained in these captures.
I have a lot to learn here about this tool.

[Thefatkitty]

Very nice Mark! I so wish I had your skies....

Thanks for the share and all the best,

[Unitron48]

Well done, Mark! Great skies!!

Dave

[Kanadalainen]

Beautiful! The corn provides "anchoring".

[Don Quixote]

Beautiful! The corn provides "anchoring".

Thank you Ian.
Its good to see you.
Yes...the corn anchors EVERYTHING here !!! :-)

[Kanadalainen]

Beautiful! The corn provides "anchoring".

Thank you Ian.
Its good to see you.
Yes...the corn anchors EVERYTHING here !!! :-)

[Juno16]

Fine MW photos Mark!

Like Bryan, I need to get out and do some of that. I’ve tried it some before I got a scope, but I ought to try it mounting the camera on the scope.

You sure have beautiful skies!

Thanks,
Jim

[Don Quixote]

Fine MW photos Mark!

Like Bryan, I need to get out and do some of that. I’ve tried it some before I got a scope, but I ought to try it mounting the camera on the scope.

You sure have beautiful skies!

Thanks,
Jim

Thank you Jim.
I think it is a great addition to my observing. You hang it. It is unobtrusive, and if you get the urge...shoot some skies ! :-)