Celestial Stairs

Astro photography is what originally inspired me to pick up a good camera. It’s also surprisingly difficult to understand from an entry level perspective. I have taken multiple shots of the Milky Way over the years since those first few shots, and a brief introduction to the idea of astro photography. I’ve learned a lot over the years, and every year I get just a little bit better at taking these shots, learning new ways to capture the beauty of the night sky in my own way. Finding inspiration where I can, and in turn showing off my work as I progress.

The lesson here is fairly simple. Perseverance, if you have a goal that you want to reach, don’t make that goal the only goal. It’s fine to have an end goal, where you want to be, some of us need that ideal in our head. What you should be doing, and this was difficult for me to learn, make smaller goals. For instance, I wanted to shoot the Milky Way, that was my quote un quote end goal. So, how did I get from a no camera nightscape photography fan, to knowing how to stack and align a Milky Way shot?

Well, I made small goals, get a camera. Learn how to work the camera in a fully manual manner. Take some photos, and test shots at night to see how things interact and light up in the dark. Then practice, learn the editing that’s required, one singular step at a time. Don’t find reasons why you CAN’T, find reasons you CAN.

This image is actually composed of 4 images, I stacked JUST the sky and froze the foreground from a single image. I did a lot of editing to balance the lighting and tones to deal with the light pollution… this ended up being my end result. I hope you guys enjoy, take a little inspiration, and until next time, have a great day.

Aperture: f2.8
ISO: 3200
SS: 44 Seconds
Focal: 8mm

Fujinon 8-16 f2.8