![]() BOTH are taken in the same manner – the only difference is that the arcing panoramas are shot with a much wider view of the sky. Let me start by saying that BOTH are real. The second is where the MW arcs across the sky in a semi-circle. The first is where the Milky Way appears flat and rises straight into the sky. There are far more than two types of night time panorama, but I’ll talk about the two most common. To give you an idea of the improvement in detail here is a 100% crop of Antares (the bright yellow star in the centre of Scorpius) with a Sigma 24mm f/1.4 lens and the Sony Sonnar t* 55mm f/1.8 CZ lens. ![]() However, if you take a panorama you can then reduce the overall size of the final image, significantly reducing the noise in the image. When trying to capture a large sky with a single frame the noise from taking the shot will need to be reduced in post-production or with layering multiple images (something I’ve not mastered, I must admit!). Third, doing a panorama with a longer focal length gives you far more detail in each frame, meaning your final panorama will not only be far bigger (pixel-wise) but also allow you to reduce the size of the panorama, reducing the noise. ![]() Also, check out this tutorial on how different focal lengths affect your final astro shot. However, I also like the sharpness of my Sony 55mm f/1.8 lens, but this obviously doesn’t capture as much of the landscape, so I need to do a panorama to get the same composition. For example, I have a Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens – a really nice fast lens. Secondly, you might want to take a panorama to take advantage of a fast lens, which will allow more light to hit your sensor, getting brighter pictures. Composition is a huge part of photography so getting the right feel to your final image may necessitate a pano. WHY EVEN DO A MILKY WAY PANORAMA?įirst up, why would you want to? There are a number of reasons – firstly, and most commonly, a panorama gives you the opportunity to create a composition that isn’t always possible with a single frame. I honestly haven’t had much success with Lightroom or Photoshop’s panorama stitchers, but you might have more luck! I generally start with PTGui, then move to MS ICE or Hugin if for some reason PTGui isn’t happy – but this is rare. Another option is Hugin, which is immensely powerful, but a little hard to get your head around first time. If you want to try a free option, consider MS ICE – a very powerful tool that works most of the time as well as being quite user friendly. The software I’ll be using to make my panoramas is PTGui – it’s not free, but suits what I do – it can also stitch RAW files, which works for me. If you haven’t done any astrophotography before then make sure you take a look at this awesome tutorial from Lonely Speck before starting. In this tutorial I’ll go through a couple of my recent panoramas and explain the process used to capture the frames and the software I used to create the final pano. We are about to head into the next stargazing season down here in the Southern Hemisphere – I thought this would be a good opportunity to talk about something that many astrophotographers like to do but can seem quite complex – making a panorama of the Milky Way.
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