Photographing the Milky Way is one of the most rewarding and impressive types of photography that you can master. When done right, this type of astrophotography produces awe-inspiring results. These photos will impress your friends and strangers who view your portfolio.
A Complete Guide to Milky Way Photography
There are a number of important details you need to know about the Earth, the sky, your camera, and your equipment. These all affect your ability to get good pictures of the Milky Way. But don’t worry! We take you through everything you need to take the best Milky Way photos:
- Photographing the Milky Way
- Editing Milky Way photos
- Best photography gear, software, and apps
- Other Creative Night photography
Photographing the Milky Way is around 50% preparation, 20% technique, and 30% about your gear.
Photographing the Milky Way
To have the Milky Way appear a certain way in your photos, two important factors are when and where to shoot. On top of this, you should think about what parts of the sky to include and emphasize in your photographs.
Choosing the right settings and following the basic rules are also crucial for astrophotography. Since it is a very specific niche, you need a lot of research and preparation to learn all the technicalities. Our articles will help you grasp these technical details.
First, we’ll help you find the Milky Way. We’ll then help you best capture the Milky Way with your camera and photography setup.
Finding the Milky Way
Knowing how to find the Milky Way at night without worrying about other factors is important. You don’t want the moon washing out the night sky, the clouds blocking your view, or city lights hiding the Milky Way.
This means you must consider seasonal and environmental factors. This includes what time of year you’re shooting, weather conditions, and where you are on the planet.
Your location also matters because the Milky Way is not always visible. You should check visibility times in the southern and northern hemispheres before you head out.
Locating the position of the North Star or South Celestial Pole helps you get a sense of the sky you’ll be shooting. After you discover your orientation in relation to the Milky Way, you can start to make decisions.
You take the best Milky Way photos when the environmental conditions are on your side. Better images come from seeing the Milky Way clearly. This means picking the right time and place for your shoot. Read our full article for all the details on how to find the Milky Way.
Milky Way Camera Settings
Astrophotography requires a different approach than almost any other kind of photography. Because of this, we’ve written an entire article on the settings that you’ll need to take your shots of the galaxy.
You need to master the 500 Rule (covered in the next article). You must also learn about focusing on infinity and long exposure noise reduction.
We also delve into the specifics of shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and focus and why you need to set them as you do here. These settings are effective for almost every shot of the Milky Way you’ll take. Master these, and you’ll be ready to start shooting!
Read our full article about Milky Way Photography camera settings.
The “500 Rule” for Night Photography
The 500 rule provides you with a formula that helps you guess the right shutter speed for night photography. This shutter speed is fast enough to avoid star trails but slow enough to let enough light into the camera to make the stars visible.
Naturally, if your goal is to create star trails, you should ignore this rule. But if you’re looking for general night photography tips, the 500 rule is something you must master.
There are also variations of the rule with different numbers. This helps you calculate the exact shutter speed for different conditions, depending on the situation. Read our full article to learn how the 500-Rule formula works and how you should combine it with image stacking!
Shooting Star Photography
Finding suitable gear and settings for night-sky photography is quite a challenge. This is especially true if we consider there are several types of star photography, all needing a slightly different setup.
You can photograph star trails, deep space, or Milky Way photography. And you can learn to bring the most out of your shots by following a few simple tips.
Apart from choosing the right settings, the biggest challenge is focusing on the stars and framing the photo right. Our full guide to star photography covers all these topics and much more. Check it out!
Milky Way Time-Lapses
A Milky Way time-lapse is perfect for documenting the movement of stars in the night sky. But to get spectacular results, you need to put quite a lot of effort into it from the very beginning.
You have to ensure you have all the equipment you need. This includes a suitable camera, a tripod, and an intervalometer. You also have to put extra research into finding the darkest location where the sky is the clearest. Some smartphone apps can help you with this.
After setting up the photoshoot carefully, you need to ensure you use the right settings. This might seem like a lot of things to pay attention to. Luckily, our full article has the most important steps for shooting a star time-lapse.
Photographing Star Trails
Long-exposure photos give us a sense of difference in a world where photography is mainly about capturing the moment. If you know how to use long exposure sparingly but creatively, you can make your images stand out from the crowd.
You can apply this technique to astrophotography, too. Star trail images capture the movement of stars in the sky. They make for amazing results if you know a few basic details to pay attention to.
If you want to avoid the noise that a long exposure night photo generates, image stacking might be a solution for you. You can learn all the details in our article. Read our complete guide about how to take pictures of star trails.
Photograph a Meteor Shower
The Milky Way is one of the highlights of the nighttime sky. But it can become a little boring after you get the hang of capturing it. By incorporating different elements into the scene, you break that monotony.
Capturing foreground landscapes is one addition you can make. For more impressive images, why not take pictures of meteor showers? Some of these showers have been around longer than 100 years.
NASA says approximately 30 visible meteor showers occur each year! That gives you a pretty good chance of capturing them, no matter where you live. Our article about how to photograph meteor showers provides all the info you’ll need.
Milky Way Photo Post-Processing
In the field of astrophotography, editing is just as important as taking the actual photo. But it’s important to know that editing Milky Way images is unlike processing typical landscape photos.
You don’t just open Lightroom or Photoshop and play around with settings. You need to learn specific editing techniques to bring out the best in your night images. This applies even if you’re already comfortable editing other photo types.
We’ll take you through the software you need. We’ll also take you through important steps to take in both Photoshop and Lightroom for polished Milky Way images.
Best Software for Astrophotography
Astrophotography is a demanding niche when it comes to editing. Luckily, if you combine Lightroom and Photoshop, you have a high chance of getting the image that you had in mind.
Many Photoshop actions, action packs, plugins, and Lightroom presets help you bring out the most of your night photos. There is everything from color correction to noise reduction.
These tools ensure your astrophoto editing workflow is as smooth as possible. For more information, make sure to read our article about the best astrophotography software.
Editing Milky Way Photos in Lightroom
If you use Adobe Lightroom, we outline everything you need to edit your Milky Way Photos. First, you should remove certain colors for striking night sky photos. And you want to do this while enhancing others.
On top of this, modulate highlights, shadows, and clarity so that the stars in your image pop. This is in contrast to their surroundings.
Besides that, you also want to correct the occasional lens distortions. They will likely occur in your Milky Way photos. Reducing the appearance of haze in front of the stars in the sky you’ve photographed is also helpful.
In our full article, we look closer at the exact adjustments you’ll want to make in Lightroom for Milky Way images. We also provide settings that will give your pictures the finished look that you’re after.
Astrophotography Photoshop Tips
Adobe Photoshop can be used by itself or as an additional step in your editing workflow after Lightroom.
First, you need to get familiar with image stacking to have as much detail in your photos as possible. After that, you need to smooth the background by reducing the noise and creating more natural colors by adjusting the white balance.
Our full post about editing astrophotography in Photoshop teaches you how to bring the most out of your RAW images. Our article quickens your workflow and ensures your night photos are as stunning as possible.
Milky Way Photography Gear, Software, and Apps
Milky Way photography doesn’t need as much expensive or specialized gear as you think. You can capture incredible results with a basic mirrorless digital camera or even a DSLR.
This section covers all the gear you need. This ranges from your camera and lens choices to remote shutters and tripods. We also suggest apps and software that will help.
Best Sensor Size and Camera
Camera sensor size is often a topic of discussion among photographers. It affects the field of view, depth of field, and resolution of your images. Thus, it is crucial to know at least the basic traits of each sensor type before delving into photography.
Which sensor you choose naturally affects your Milky Way photography as well. When it comes to field of view, each sensor size has its advantages and disadvantages. But full-frame cameras definitely win in the case of low-light performance.
Read our full article about the best astrophotography camera sensor size if you want to know how different ones affect your astrophotos!
But a full-frame camera is the best camera type to photograph the Milky Way. You can read our article about the best cameras for astrophotography for our top recommendations. The one camera we recommend that isn’t a full-frame is the OM-D E-M1 Mark III, which has a Starry Night mode.
Best Lenses and Accessories
But if you invest in any more equipment, it should be the lenses we recommend for astrophotography. These include wide-angle lenses and manual focus lenses.
We also review a few handy tripods and photo accessories you don’t want to go without. A sturdy tripod with a ball head goes a long way to taking sharp Milky Way images.
You need to get around on the location in the dark, without seeing much. So, having a headlamp or flashlight is just as important as your camera and tripod.
We also recommend having a compass, intervalometer, camera remote, gloves, and black electrical tape handy. Read our full article about Milky Way photography gear for all the details.
Ensure you have all the necessary equipment. With the proper gear, you ensure you can take the photos you planned to get.
SLR Lounge Milky Way Course
If you want to learn Milky Way photography but don’t know where to start, SLR Lounge’s course might be just for you. The content consists of video lessons, PDFs, exercises, and bonus presets.
By finishing the course, you can master astrophotography in no time. All this comes for a reasonable price, where you can choose between a one-time purchase and a yearly subscription. It’s suitable for amateurs who have basic photography knowledge but no astrophotography experience.
Read our full review of Photographing the Milky Way by SLR Lounge.
AstroBin Image Hosting
AstroBin is an image-hosting website specializing in astrophotography. It also includes a multilingual photography forum, a photo backup service, and a huge gear database.
AstroBin lets you upload your night photos in full resolution and organize them into a gallery. It also offers discussion forums on various topics, whether it is regarding photography, astronomy gear, or post-processing techniques.
You can choose from different subscription plans that let you upload an increasing number of pictures to your gallery. Read our full AstroBin review to learn more about this amazing astrophotography website!
Smartphone Apps
Getting the conditions just right does take a little bit of planning. But luckily we live in an era when technology can help us in that planning. You can take advantage of many mobile apps to help you do everything.
For example, finding the darkest skies near your location and checking the phase of the moon. It’s best to shoot during the new moon.
On top of this, they’ll help you discover when you’ll have full darkness on any given day. Accurate weather forecasts are important, too.
These apps are our personal, field-tested favorites. We used these same ones when making our Milky Way Mastery course. One of the apps on this list is Photopills. Check out our full article to learn about the other Milky Way apps!
iPhone Astrophotography Apps
One of the biggest technical challenges of astrophotography is navigating the dark sky. You need to find the stars and constellations that you have planned to photograph. You also need to ensure the weather and the lighting conditions are suitable for night photography.
Luckily, technology nowadays lets us eliminate these problems and do even more. You can download apps that follow the Sun’s journey through the sky, give you more information about the phases of the moon, and even help you find places with the least light pollution.
Check out our full list of iPhone apps that will assist you in your Milky Way photography!
Other Creative Night Photography
Capturing images of the Milky Way is part of the broader category of night photography. You can expand your niche if you enjoy the experience and challenges of working in low-light conditions.
You may well enjoy exploring other types of creative night photography. For the ambitious, you may even want to combine some other nighttime photography projects.
Milky Way photography can take a long time. So, making the most out of your Milky Way photography trip might be best.
Here are a few more ideas for photography you can do after night has fallen and darkness cloaks your surroundings.
Mastering Night Photography
Everything photographable during the day is repeatable at night. Oftentimes, you can do it with more dramatic or interesting effects. This is because need to harness methods to achieve proper exposure.
When you’re comfortable modulating aperture, shutter speed, and ISO at night, you can begin to plan your shots. There are certain effects that you can only achieve during the nighttime.
Light trails, reflections, moonlight, and image noise are only a few natural, in-camera effects that you may want to explore. Check out our full article about mastering creative night photography for more tips!
Night Landscape Photography
Think of night landscape photography as a hybrid of Milky Way photography and traditional landscapes. Many of the same concerns about shooting conditions and camera settings apply. The key difference is that your subject is the landscape rather than the sky above.
Because of this, you mainly pay more attention to the foreground and composition. You won’t necessarily have to worry so much about the moon and the position of the stars in the sky.
But you still must think about the movement of the Earth. You also need to time your long exposures accordingly. (Depending on whether you want star trails in your shot.) Read our full guide on landscape photography at night for all the best tips!
Light Painting
This unique variation of light graffiti is a fantastic wat to create stunning images. The best thing is you only need a few simple household materials. In essence, you’re taking a long-exposure photo. The shutter stays open while you are “painting” within the frame.
The equipment you need to do it is inexpensive, easy to find, and very portable. This makes light painting photography an excellent side project during Milky Way shots.
Our full article covers the techniques of creating light painting images. It also goes over the essential equipment you must have to do it.
Conclusion: Milky Way Photography
Milky Way photography is undoubtedly a difficult photography niche to master. You need to get a specific set of equipment, research the right settings, and learn new editing techniques. And you must learn all this while being at the mercy of the weather!
If you found this article useful, check out our Milky Way Mastery course, which will help you become a better astrophotographer!
