Pentax Milky Way Shot From 2019 - Finally Happy With Processing

[Richard A]

I took this (actually these) shot back in 2019 but was never even slightly happy with the editing of it. It is five shots stacked (plus a single dark frame) taken with the Astro Tracer mode on my Pentax K-3II. This is a four minute exposure so when the five are stacked it is 20 mins of exposure time. I watched a video on YouTube by Richard Tatti of Nightscape Images the other night & immediately thought of this image. To keep a long story short, I followed his editing techniques and came up with this.

This was taken in quite a dark sky at Myponga, south of Adelaide. I was using a Pentax 16-45 zoom at 20mm (30mm FF equivalent) at f5.6. This is far from a great astro lens to be honest. But anyway, after more than five years I am finally pretty happy with it. It has given me the enthusiasm to go out and try some astro now with my A7RV.

• PENTAX K-3 II
• 20.0 mm
• ƒ/5.6
• 240 sec
• ISO 1600

BTW, the bright "star" just lower left of centre is actually Jupiter.

 

[Richard A]

This is another shot where I used a similar technique. This was taken about six months after the previous shot. The difference, of course, is that this one has land in it (and quite a lot of light) so the Astrotracer function cannot be used. This was 35 stacked images with 10 dark frames. These were also taken with my Pentax K-3II but with the Pentax 12-24 set at 24mm. This is Southport Beach at Port Noarlunga, southern suburbs of Adelaide. This is looking roughly south and the Southern Cross and Pointers are visible in the top lefthand corner. The Southern Cross appears on the Australian flag of course. And the New Zealand flag. The Pointer star furthest from the Southern Cross is Alpha Centauri (which is actually a triple star cluster). Does anyone here know the significance of Alpha Centauri in modern culture? It's a bit obscure...

• PENTAX K-3 II
• 12.0 mm
• ƒ/4
• 15 sec
• ISO 1600