Here in Southern California, the night sky is filled with airplanes and helicopters, but definitely not the Milky Way. On vacation at the Kaweah River, at the foot of the Sequoia National Forest, I was finally able to glimpse the Milky Way for the first time in years and years. It was glorious. But how to capture it?

Who Needs Hubble?

I had never attempted to photograph stars, so I did a little research. To capture fantastic close-up shots of planets, stars and nebulae, some pretty fancy equipment is necessary. The key is to track the stars through a computerized telescope, and exposures in the 4-hour range. Without tracking software or rigs, you end up with light trails and smears, not lovely clear shots of celestial bodies.

But for general pictures of the night sky, all you will need a tripod and an SLR with a BULB function. The BULB function allows you to take long exposures (longer than 30-secs), and as long as your finger is on the shutter button, the camera will hold the shutter open. The tricky part is staying still with your finger on the button so you don’t get camera shake. The key to solving this problem is an external trigger release for your camera. It’s a remote release cord that attaches to your camera, allowing you to trigger the shutter without shaking the camera. If you purchase a trigger cable, make sure it’s a model compatible with your camera.

Heavenly Photography: Step By Step

Alas, I didn’t have a shutter release cable with me, but was able to take these shots of the sky with only a tripod, my Nikon D70s, and a steady hand. Here’s how I did it:

1. I made sure that both my camera batteries were charged. Long exposures can really drain your batteries.
2. I set up my camera on a tripod and composed the picture as best I could. This can be a bit tricky because it was really dark. I brought a flashlight with me so I could illuminate the trees in the foreground and get an idea of where the camera was pointing. It looks best if you have something in the foreground to give context to your picture. I had some beautiful mountains in the distance to frame the stars and give a sense of the grandeur of the sky over the Earth. These shots were made with an 18mm lens.
3. I turned off the noise reduction function for long exposures on my Nikon because it was treating the smaller stars as camera noise.
4. I set my ISO. I used ISO 800. The lower your ISO, the clearer and less grainy your pictures will be. If I had a remote trigger, I would have used ISO 200 or 400 and a longer exposure.
5. I set my Shutter Speed to BULB and set the f/stop. My f/stop was a case of trial and error. I started with an f/8 to see if I could get an exposure. Without the remote trigger, I was limited to about 3 minutes of exposure time, and that wasn’t enough to get the bright look I wanted from the sky. I kept lowering it until I maxed out the f/stop. These were shot with an f/3.5
6. I took a deep breath and pressed the shutter button. I had to stand still for up to 2.5 minutes. The exposures for these shots range from 1-minute to 2.5 minutes. It was very peaceful to make these pictures. I had to be still, breathe slowly, and do nothing but admire the sky. Actually, that’s not exactly true. I didn’t have a clock with me so I had to figure out a way to tell how much time was elapsing with each exposure.

Finding the Sweet Spot

The first picture below was taken with an 80-second exposure. It is pretty clear and the light trails are not very pronounced. The second picture was taken with a 152-second exposure. There is a lot more going on in the sky, but increased camera shake takes away from the sharpness of the shot.

Example 1: 80-Second Exposure

Example 2: 152-Second Exposure

Someday, I hope to live in a place where I can see the Milky Way all the time. Astrophotography is something that really interest me, and I hope to be able to take some fantastic space shots in my photo life. If you’re lucky enough to live where you can see lots of stars, give these simple ideas a shot and you, too, might catch the astrophotography bug.