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Astro Photography  >   The Milky Way

The Milky Way

This gallery contains wide-field photographs of the Milky Way (our galaxy). Photographing the Milky Way is where astro photography started for me, and still a subject I enjoy capturing. Photographing the Milky Way wide field provides the opportunity to link the spectacular night sky with the familiar earth landscapes through the use of silhouettes and foreground inclusions.
Milky Way and Rho Ophiuchi
The Milky Way and Rho Ophiuchi region, photographed with the AstroTrac.
Milky Way with Rho Ophiuchi and Meteor
I was lucky enough to have a very bright meteor streak through the field of view of my photograph. It's very rare they are bright enough and in the right area of the sky to actually be photographed.
Milky Way taken with AstroTrac
This is the second ever image taken using my new AstroTrac, it's of the centre of the Milky Way when almost at Zenith.
Perth City Without Light Pollution
What would the city of Perth look like if it didn't have a bright halo of light pollution covering it's skies?
Northern Milky Way (June 2010)
Our galaxy the Milky Way rising from the north-eastern horizon of the Wheatbelt.
Wide field Milky Way
A wide field photograph of the Milky Way from April 2004 showing the central region of the galaxy.
Dryandra Lions Village and Milky Way
In the foreground is a cottage of Dyrandra Lions Village. In the very far background is the stars of the Southern Cross and Pointers (although one star of the Southern Cross is hidden by tree), and the Milky Way faintly showing.
Milky Way - July 2007, 60s
WARNING: This image is 1mb in size.

The Milky Way, 2 frame composite. This is not a particularly high quality image, showing considerable distortion in the edge 1/3 of the image resulting from the lens being fully open at F/2.

This is the screw mount lens I used on my Pentax SP1000 for many years doing film Astro Photography. I had since fogotten it needed to be stopped down.

Still relatively happy with the result considering the long drought of photo's prior to this.
Milky Way - May 2007 - Centre
The centre of the Milky Way rising from the ground. Shot out in the Western Australian Wheatbelt region piggybacked wide-field on my telescope.
Milky Way - May 2007 - Northern
This shows the Milky Way rising from the ground. taken on a night of partial cloud a significant portion of the image is affected by passing cloud, reducing the contrast and detail in the image.

The orange glow is the natural colour fo the image and does not come from light pollution. The only hint of light pollution is a small patch on the horizon where headlights of a passing vehicle temporarily shon on a distant hill.
Milky Way - May 2007 - South w/Rock
This photograph shows the southern end of the Milky Way including Southern Cross and Eta Carina arcing up from the ground.

The location was Kokerbin Rock in the West Australian Wheatbelt. Kokerbin is a shire reserve with a large granite monolyth that you can camp at. This provides for an excellent astronomy location, weather and fellow campers permitting.

Kokerbin Rock is beyind the trees on the right of this image.

The night was partly cloudy with good long clera spe
Milky Way - May 2007 - Southern
This image shows the southern Milky Way high above the horizon to the south. The Large Magellanic Cloud is visible in this image also, near the horizon.

I am pleased with the contrast and general results in the area of the Milky Way near the top of the image, considering the night was partly cloudy and generally contrast was low.

There is no light pollution at this location so all colour in the image is "natural" (as much as it can be for a digital camera).
Milky Way - June 2006, Set 1
Taken in amongst the light pollution of the outer suburbs of Perth (WA) this is an interesting comparison to 30 second and 20 second exposures taken out under dark skies (see links at bottom of page).

Taken at an ASWA viewing night.

This was the first image I processed from the night, and while I removed much of the light pollution it is still clearly visible as a halo around the trees at the bottom of the FOV. A
Milky Way - June 2006, Set 2
Taken in amongst the light pollution of the outer suburbs of Perth (WA) this is an interesting comparison to 30 second and 20 second exposures taken out under dark skies (see links at bottom of page).

Taken at an ASWA viewing night.

This was the second image I processed from the night and like the first while I removed much of the light pollution it is still clearly visible as a halo around the trees at the botto
Milky Way - June 2006, Set 4
Taken in amongst the light pollution of the outer suburbs of Perth (WA).

Taken at an ASWA viewing night.

By the time I processed this image I had learned much about removing light pollution from these wide field photographs. As a result this is quite a nicer result than the first 2 sets of images from the night.
Milky Way - June 2006, Set 5
Taken in amongst the light pollution of the outer suburbs of Perth (WA).

Taken at an ASWA viewing night.

By the time I processed this image I had learned much about removing light pollution from these wide field photographs. As a result this is quite a nicer result than the first 2 sets of images from the night and even an improvement on the 4th (previous) set.

It's become apparent to me that it's almost
Milky Way - May 2006, Set 1 (Dark sky site)
This image was taken from a dark sky site, suing the Canon EOS 350D on a fixed tripod (that's right, absolutely no tracking platform or telescope mount involved at al). At 1600ASA and 20 second exposures in the dark conditions good exposure detail could be achieved.

The field rotation and other movements between images are comphensated for by registering (aligning) the images using RegiStar.

It's surprising what can be achieved without a telescope or telescope mount, for astro
Milky Way - May 2006, Set 2 (Dark sky site)
This image was taken from a dark sky site, suing the Canon EOS 350D on a fixed tripod (that's right, absolutely no tracking platform or telescope mount or telescope at all!). At 1600ASA and 20 second exposures in the dark conditions good exposure detail could be achieved.

The field rotation and other movements between images are comphensated for by registering (aligning) the images using RegiStar.

It is interesting to compare this 20 second dark sky image to a 5 minute tracked
Milky Way - May 2006, Set 4 (Dark sky site)
This image was taken from a dark sky site, suing the Canon EOS 350D on a fixed tripod (that's right, absolutely no tracking platform or telescope mount). At 1600ASA and 30 second exposures in the dark conditions good exposure detail could be achieved.

At 30 seconds and 21mm very slight trailing is visible at 100% view of the original images. This is not detectable in the small version here.

The field rotation and other movements between images are comphensated for by registeri
Southern Milky Way
This image of the Southern Milky Way was taken on my first night with the 350D.

Taken at a very light polluted location it took quite some effort to remove as much of the light gradient as I have. Still, there is a lack of contrast because of this.

The image shows the Southern Cross & Pointers (alpha and beta centauri), Eta Carinae, the Coal Sack, and a little more of the Milky Way.
The Southern Milky Way
This image shows stunning detail with millions of stars, tiny pin pricks visible. The Southern Cross, Coal Sack and Eta Carina Nebula feature in this shot.

This image is available for purchase as a photographic print up to 80cm x 50cm as well as on mugs and mouse mats.
The Milky Way in Twilight
This is the Milky Way (centered on Sagittarius), taken during twilight resulting in a wonderful golden glow from the sun, along the horizon.

This is a very wide field image of The Milky Way, taken with the 17-40mm lens at 17mm.

This image is available for purchase as a photographic print up to 50cm x 33cm.
The Milky Way - Panoramic Composite
This is a composite image, comprising of 4 seperate photographs each of about 20 minutes exposure. This image shows great colour through the Milky Way with several well known nebula's and celestial features visible.
The Southern Cross and Pointers
This image shows the well known Southern Cross and Pointers with nice star colour, detail along the Milky Way and the Coal Sack. I'm very pleased with the colour visible in this image.

This image is available for purchase as a photographic print up to 80cm x 50cm as well as on mugs and mouse mats.
Sagittarius and Mars
Visible in this image is Sagittarius and Mars. Mars is the bright white/red dot to the centre left, above and to the left of th Lagoon Nebula (M8). This image really puts everything in perspective, placing Mars in front of our enormous Milky Way galaxy behind.
Sagittarius
This image shows the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way, with Sagittarius in centre of frame. This is taken with a very wide angle lens (17mm using 35mm film) producing a rare single-image vista of the Milky Way.
Eta Carinae region
This image was taken quite a while ago, with my old Pentax SP1000 piggybacked on my manually tracked 4.5" Newtonian reflector. Considering all, this is still quite a reasonable shot.
Eta Carinae region showing the Coal Sack
This image has some quite nice features, showing a lot of the dust lanes in the vacinity of Eta Carinae and the Southern Cross. The Southern Cross is just out of FOV at the bottom. The Coal Sack is visible at the bottom.

This was taken piggybacked on my old 4.5" Newtonian reflector, manually guided.
Sagittarius Region
This image is useful to show what can be acheived in such small exposure time with The Milky Way. At only 10 minutes exposure and manually guided on a 4.5" Newtonian reflector.
Emu (the) Constellation
This image shows The Emu, a constellation for lack of a better description. To my knoweldge The Emu was reconised by aboriginal people in Australia. It is a patern of stars and dust stretching through the Milkway area of the night sky. The Emu is huge, photographed here using a 17mm focal length and still only just fitting within the FOV. I was experiencing some guiding issues at the time of taking shots of The Emu so ended up just switching it off, so this is unguided.
Milky Way Rising
This is a photograph showing the Milky Way (our galaxy) - section including scorpius, rising above the eastern horizon.
The Milky Way rising with Jupiter
This photograph shows the Milky Way rising, and Jupiter just below it also rising.
The Emu Constellation
This photograph shows the "constellation" of The Emu. This is an easily reconisable area of the southern sky.
Milky Way at the Zenith
An easy series of 30 second exposures taken looking up at the Milky Way when at the zenith, arcing right over head (spectacular view in person). Stacked in RegiStar, which as it turned out, for the same image, produced a much better final result than DeepSkyStacker. The version of the image from DeepSkyStacker shows significantly more trailing throughout and distortion particularly towards the edges. RegiStar seems to have done a much better job.
Messier 7 (M7)
This is a photograph of M7. This Open Cluster towards the centre of the Milky Way is surrounded by a field of golden stars.
Milky Way over Kokerbin Rock (90s)
The Milky Way setting over Kokerbin Rock (Kokerbin Nature Reserve) in Wheatbelt Western Australia.
Milky Way Setting over Kokerbin Rock 180s
The Milky Way setting behind foreground trees, with Kokerbin Rock beneath.
The Southern Cross and Pointers with foreground silhouettes
The Southern Cross and Pointers with foreground silhouettes, as the cross sets in the south east.
Southern Cross and Eta Carina
Southern Cross and Eta Carina, a new take on this frequently photographed pair. It's just amazing how many stars turn out in photographs like this!
Moon and Milky Way setting
A photograph of the crescent Moon and Milky Way setting at Astro Camp, October 2011.
The Moon setting below the Milky Way
A photograph of The Moon setting below the Milky Way from country Western Australia.
This is a web site of photography and astronomy, by Roger Groom in Western Australia. Photographic subjects include Pemberton, Dryandra Woodland Karri Forest, Cape Leeuwin, Ocean Landscapes, Kings Park, El Questro and Emma Gorge, and much more landscape photography.
Astrophotography subjects include The Milky Way, Large Magellanic Cloud, Small Magellanic Cloud, Orion Nebula, Saucepan Constellation, Southern Cross, Southern Cross and Pointers, Startrails, and much more astrophotography.
Photography is copyright, see copyright info

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