About the Project
The dark skies here in the southwest have inspired me to learn more about astrophotography. Recently, I drove up to Sedona for my first attempt at shooting the Milky Way.
I found some excellent resources at Lonely Speck that helped me get started, including settings for my camera. I recommend consulting Dark Site Finder to find areas that are dark enough to see the Milky Way with the naked eye. I also used Stellarium to figure out when and where the Milky Way would be visible in Sedona for my selected date. Then I checked out Google Street View for some possible locations. Finally, I used the Planit Pro app to pinpoint the Milky Way for my selected location and plan my shot.
I scouted out my chosen location during the day so I would be familiar with my surroundings that evening. I used a Sony RX100 M2 on a tripod and took multiple shots over the course of a couple hours. It was awesome to see the Milky Way slowly rise from behind the rock formations throughout the night. Eventually Jupiter and Saturn appeared to the left of Bell Rock!
Here are the camera settings I used:
- RAW
- manual focus
- f/1.8
- ISO 1600
- 20 second shutter speed
- 2 second self timer (to reduce camera shake after pressing the shutter button)
For the panorama, I took 8 photos total (2 rows of 4 photos each) and stitched them together in Lightroom.
Bell Rock during the day
original image straight from the camera
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