Re: [APML] Northern Milky Way

[Jerry Lodriguss <jerry@astropix.com>]

Hi Kevin,

Thanks.

You can get a pretty good feeling for how dark the skies are where this 
shot was taken by looking at this:

http://www.astropix.com/HTML/H_OTHER/SATPOL1.HTM

The site I shot from was #12.

The skies there are fairly dark, you can see Milky Way easily on a dark and 
transparent night. There is some light pollution on the horizon in 
different directions, particularly in the direction of Atlantic City, and 
it goes up about 45 degrees in that direction.  There is also a lot in the 
northwest from Vineland and Philadelphia that stretches from north to west 
and goes up about 30-45 degrees.  It's about as good as south Jersey gets 
though.

You deal with artificial sky brightness issues by:

1. Driving to a darker site. There is no substitute for a darker site.

2. Not shooting in the direction of the light pollution.

3. Shooting when the object or area is highest in the sky.

4. Using a light pollution rejection filter like the IDAS (of course you 
must use long focal lengths though with these interference filters, so I 
couldn't use one for this shot).

5. Shooting on a very dark and transparent night with low humidity.

6. Shooting after midnight when some of the light pollution is diminished.

7. Processing in Photoshop to remove the light pollution density and color 
gradients.

This particular site is an hour drive for me.  Could I have done this from 
my driveway in suburbia?  I don't think so.

There is no substitute for dark skies if your interest is in capturing the 
faintest stuff, not even CCD.  Tony Hallas has shown this with his amazing 
CCD shot of the incredible number of small background galaxies around M51.

Jerry



At 03:01 PM 7/21/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>Jerry, a most beautiful shot.
>
>Your notes indicate it was taken from New Jersey, and from checking a map 
>of the location, I'm guessing you did not have totally dark skies. Did you 
>have sky brightness issues to deal with, and if so, how did you do so? I 
>am frankly surprised that a film image of such high quality could be taken 
>from that location.
>
>I'd like to know because I also have light pollution to deal with unless I 
>drive myself and my equipment many hours away.
>
>Kevin Wigell
>www.kwastronomy.com
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Jerry Lodriguss" <jerry@astropix.com>
>To: <astro-photo@seds.org>
>Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 06:05
>Subject: [APML] Northern Milky Way
>
>
> >
> > I've added a picture of the Northern Milky Way to my web site:
> >
> > http://www.astropix.com/HTML/SHOWCASE/NMW.HTM
> >
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Astro-Photo mailing list
>Astro-Photo@seds.org
>http://seds.org/mailman/listinfo/astro-photo


Photoshop for Astrophotographers - http://www.astropix.com/PFA/PFA.HTM










_______________________________________________
Astro-Photo mailing list
Astro-Photo@seds.org
http://seds.org/mailman/listinfo/astro-photo