🌌 Camping Under Bortle 1 Skies at Dry Tortugas
User Story · Vol.09
Capturing the Winter Milky Way Panorama Over Fort Jefferson
10-12 min read
Welcome to the ninth edition of our User Story series.
This time, we're heading to Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida, where Victoria Buckman (@victoriajeanpic) captured an unforgettable Milky Way panorama over Fort Jefferson beneath Bortle Class 1 skies.
📍 Location: Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida
Within the remote islands of the Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida stands one of the largest forts built in the Americas. It offered one of the most unforgettable nights I've experienced under the stars.
After a day snorkeling the coral reefs in the turquoise waters, we settled in for camping beneath some of the darkest skies in the United States, Bortle Class 1. ✨
🎯 The Goal: Photographing the Milky Way Panorama
I was here to photograph the Milky Way. Having planned this trip six months in advance, I was eager to get started.
Fort Jefferson stands out of place within this tropical paradise, a perfect foreground for the mesmerizing Milky Way arc surrounded by water.
As sunset painted the sky in soft pastel colors, I positioned myself on the formidable fort's northwestern bastion on the moat wall and started with the foreground as blue hour crept in.
For this, I used my Sony A7IV with Laowa 10mm lens and shot 22 images in portrait orientation that I would later stitch together using PTGui. A lot, maybe, but I wanted enough room to capture the sky and the water (the colors were so beautiful) and didn't want to distort the fort while I got the whole scene.
📹 Click here to see the shooting location
📸 Shooting the Night Sky with MSM NOMAD
While everyone else slept, I got to work shooting the most beautiful night sky you could imagine, and nothing but the big grand fort was in its way.
For this part, I got my astro modified Sony A7IV and Sigma 20mm lens equipped with Capture The Night filter, set up with my MSM NOMAD tracker and dialed it in.
As night crept on, I finally began my series with exposure settings at:
- Aperture: f/2.5
- ISO: 3200
- Exposure: 60 seconds
- Panorama: 8 panels, 2 images per panel
I captured 8 panels- 2 images per panel for the arc over the fort.
🌌 The Experience Under Dark Skies
Many times I paused to take it all in. Under such dark skies, the stars seemed to buzz with energy overhead.
The MSM NOMAD's quick setup let me spend less time adjusting gear and more time appreciating the moment.
💻 Post-processing Workflow
After we returned home, I took some time to process it all- figuratively and literally.
Workflow if memory serves:
-
Lightroom Preparation
Lightly editing all files in Lightroom for proper exposure and exporting them as TIFF files for stitching. -
Foreground Stitching
Stitch the fort foreground in PTGui (all 22 images) and save it as a single TIFF image. -
Sky Image Stacking
Stack the 16 sky TIFF images (only 2 images each panel to stack, not much but it helped a little with noise reduction), leaving 8 panels across for the panorama of the Milky Way using the 20mm lens. -
Sky Stitching
Stitch the 8 sky TIFF images in PTGui and save as a single TIFF image. -
Final Photoshop Editing
Open the sky file in Photoshop and make minor additional edits using adjustment layers, then blend in the fort foreground file as another layer.
💡 Astrophotography Tips from Victoria
Use Your Histogram
- Do not trust your LCD screen, as it is often artificially brighter than reality.
- Don't clip the brightness of those bright stars.
- Keep the left side of your histogram separated from the edge, as you will need that data in the darkness later when editing.
- Try to have your histogram represent a bell shape.
Plan the Milky Way Position in Advance
- Know what you will be working with for timing and where the Milky Way will be positioned in the sky relative to your scene.
- Understand where and when the galactic core (often the focal point) will be positioned, rising or setting.
- Use Milky Way planning apps with augmented reality to help with your preparation.
- Don't forget about the Winter Milky Way season. Orion is just as interesting.
Keep Learning
- Learning how to track and/or stack will only enhance the quality of your images.
- Practice with your new gear before going out to shoot. You do not want to try it for the first time in the dark, in the field.
Don't Be Afraid To Experiment
- Add interesting foreground elements.
- Step out of your comfort zone.
- Change focal lengths or lenses. Don't get stuck shooting the same thing.
When They Say Gear Doesn't Matter, It Does... Sometimes
- Having a collar helps to quickly move the camera from landscape to portrait orientation without removing it from the tripod.
- Use an intervalometer to prevent camera shake, which can blur stars.
- While you can take Milky Way images without a tracker, using a tracker makes a significant difference and will positively impact your editing process.
And It Bears Repeating
- Make sure everything is tightened down: tripod head, legs, ballhead, Arca plate, brackets... everything.
⭐ Victoria's Favorite Gear Other Than The Tracker
The V or Z Mount
When I finally figured out how to properly move all of the axis points on this, it made polar alignment and shooting panoramic images much easier and made my whole setup much less bulky.
📷 Gear List
| Camera | Sony A7 IV Astro Modified |
| Lens | Sigma 20mm f/1.4 Art DG DN |
| Tracker | MSM NOMAD Tracker |
| Polar Alignment Tool | MSM Laser |
| Accessory | MSM Ball Head |
| Accessory | MSM Alyn Wallace 360° Flex Tilt & Pan Head V Mount |
| Accessory | SmallRig Rotatable Collar Mount Plate |
| Tripod Head | MSM Wedge |
| Tripod | ArtCise AS95C 82" Carbon Fiber Bowl Tripod |
| Intervalometer | JJC Wireless Intervalometer |
