First Milky Way of the Season

[JimFox]

I captured this in February out at Joshua Tree National Park. Typically the Milky Way Season starts in March though some people consider April the first month of it. So mine is a bit of an outlier, it was captured early morning, maybe an hour before sunrise max. Within 10 minutes of this the sky is getting noticeably brighter and the Milky Way was getting noticeably washed out. So I was happy to get this!

ISO 800
20 secs
f1.8

Nikon D850
Sigma 14m f1.8

It's a much lower ISO then I would normally be using, but the moon had been up for over half the night and it was super bright then. I just extended the exposure after the moon set as for timelapses, changes to the exposure can be really hard to deal with when processing and putting together a smooth looking timelapse.

The processing is a bit of a change for me. I used PhotoLab 7 to reduce the noise and some very basic editing. I then took it into ACR to do more powerful editing, and finished it off in Photoshop. FYI, I could have done the same Noise Reduction in ACR, but it would have taken it 23 minutes for this one image by it's estimate. While PhotoLab did the Noise Reduction almost instantly.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

 

[Trent Watts]

The results look fabulous to me Jim. I like your composition with the tree included. The sky really is wonderful. Your processing worked well to my eye.

 

[AlanLichty]

Very nice result - this worked quite well.

Your workflow is almost identical to how I have been using PL7 but you already knew that It can do some interesting adjustments that LR/ACR can't match but I always end up finishing the job in LR/ACR and PS.

 

[DES]

Really nice, with the interesting foreground detail and especially the glimmer of light on the far horizon.

 

[JimFox]

The results look fabulous to me Jim. I like your composition with the tree included. The sky really is wonderful. Your processing worked well to my eye.

Thanks Trent! Compositions at night can be a bit tricky as the Milky Way doesn't always rise where one might think it should. So I am happy this turned out and the Milky Way got above the tree before it got too bright out.

 

[JimFox]

Very nice result - this worked quite well.

Your workflow is almost identical to how I have been using PL7 but you already knew that It can do some interesting adjustments that LR/ACR can't match but I always end up finishing the job in LR/ACR and PS.

Thanks Alan, I like how it turned out. I did only have to clear about 20 of Musks Starlink Satellites from the sky.

I wasn't going to use PhotoLab7 on it, but when I got the estimate of 23 minutes from ACR to do its Noise Reduction I figured I might as well try PL7 again. The adjustments made is PL7 beyond the NR was very subtle since PL7 induces halo's and washed out looks so easily. I would guess that maybe a stop of DR was added in PL7. The heavy hitting was done back in Bridge and ACR.

For the upcoming Timelapse I will post later, it was all done in ACR and Photoshop. No PL7. But I will try in the future just using PL7 as a Noise Reduction tool, saving as jpgs, and then seeing how heavy I can hit this jpgs in ACR without posterizing the sky.

 

[JimFox]

Really nice, with the interesting foreground detail and especially the glimmer of light on the far horizon.

Thanks Darryl. With it early in the season and the sun about to rise, I am really happy with this.

 

[Douglas Sherman]

Excellent image, Jim.