Night Photography Group - Capture the Milky Way Workshop

Submitted by Keith Bridgman

Summer has arrived in Kentucky and along with it comes a muggy atmosphere, hazy skies, and brief but often spectacular night sky events. That is the nature of trying to shoot after the sun goes down in this state...you never really know what is in store. You start the day with sunny skies and high expectations only to have Mother Nature throw a curve ball at you just before your planned shoot.

The Night Photography group Capture the Milky Way Workshop event was originally planned for the 26th of June only to have thick rain clouds roll in just about the time the event was to start. They just popped up out of nowhere and spoiled what could have been a great and fun evening of fellowship and night sky photography. The Forecast eventually pointed to Saturday evening the 29th as being the most promising, so the event was rescheduled. The night before, on the 28th, the skies were clear and bright and dark...and the Milky Way hung in all of her glory across the southeastern sky...a missed opportunity based on a flawed forecast. The 29th still promised great potential, but late that afternoon more popup rain squalls started to fill in between the bright spots. The evening hung in the balance, but the forecast still said the evening was going to be clear...so we held off another cancellation hoping the weatherman guessed right.

Dwight and Heather converged in my driveway just after sundown to attend the event with hopeful anticipation of learning more about how to capture the night sky. A thick haze created a soft veil across the sky limiting the visibility creating marginal conditions at best, yet Jupiter shone bright and clear to the south about 30 degrees or so above the treeline and gave us hope the night would prove to be another clear and bright sky. Scattered here and there other stars appeared and the haze began to thin out. By 9:30ish pm the southern sky cleared and the Scorpius constellation shone bright and sharp against an ebony sky, and was surrounded by a multitude of other stars. That was a good omen as the heart of the Milky Way lies just to the east below Antares, one of the main stars of the constellation. Jupiter, by way of its current orbital position hovered very near where the Dark Horse of the Milky Way would rear its dark hooves against the sky. The evening began to improve and soon so did our photographic attempts.

Learning how to capture the Milky Way requires you understand a few important details; Where to find it, how to set your camera exposure, and a basic understanding what is there to photograph. Camera settings proved a bit ornery for Dwight as his attempts kept coming up dark...way darker than they should have been using the assumed settings he was using. After a quick review of what his camera was actually doing we discovered his Nikon was set on Auto ISO and it was simply choosing the wrong ISO setting. With this corrected, his images began to take on the aura of ghostly nebulosity and countless hidden stars of the night.

Before long another yellowish looking spot of light rose above the tree line...A quick check using Star Tracker revealed this was the Ringed  Planet Saturn. Surprisingly, using relatively standard photographic equipment, you can actually capture the rings of Saturn. With a little trial and error and some tight cropping, the ringed planet did indeed reveal itself to us.

Our Capture the Milky Way event in spite of the ominous start, proved to be a great evening of friendly chatter and photographic revelation. As the summer progresses, we will continue to explore this wonderful realm in ever increasing complex shooting events. Hopefully, more members from Sunny Sixteen will participate as it is a fascinating form of photography...one that is much easier to do than most realize.