My favorite season has begun – Ordinary Time! For those of you who do not speak “Catholic,” Ordinary Time is a liturgical season. Catholics (as well as other mainline denominations) organize the calendar into five main periods of time we call seasons: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Ordinary Time. There’s a whole series of articles I could write about these seasons, but this isn’t a blog about liturgical theology. Instead, I’ll cut to the chase why Ordinary Time is my favorite season – My workload tends to slow down!
This professional breathing space in my calendar coincides with my favorite nighttime season: Milky Way Core Season! It isn’t an official scientific season in astronomy. Rather, its the nickname given to the period of time from late spring to late summer when the core of our Milky Way galaxy is in good position to photograph.
This is what the Milky Way core looks like through the lens of my camera (with some editing on my computer).
There are many reasons why I love this season as an astrophotographer. For one its “target rich,” meaning that there are many cataloged objects to image. Looking at the image above, there are star clusters, nebulae of all three varieties (emission, reflection, and dark), billions of stars and the reminder of what we can’t see – the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.
I also enjoy this season because the camera equipment needed to image these objects is more basic. All I needed to capture the image above was my camera (Fujifilm X-H2), a 56mm lens and my tripod. I used a technique of imaging smaller sections of the Milky Way core and moving my camera slightly after each series of images to create a panorama. Each image capture was 4 seconds. The image above was stitched together from 96 images, representing about four minutes of captured data.
I would have loved to stay out all night and get an hour of data to make a really stunning image of our galactic center but, alas, I had to work Sunday morning. Its the occupational hazard of being a hobby astronomer Priest – Sleep deprivation and weekend Mass schedules don’t go well together!
If you have a “real camera” (meaning something other than your cellphone) and a tripod, you have everything you need to take nice images of the stars. Below is a brief video from one of my favorite astrophotographers, Alyn Wallace, walking you through the basics of landscape astrophotography.
Sadly, Alyn passed away recently from complications with an infection. Even though I never met Alyn, his passing has hit me pretty hard because I have learned so much from him by watching his YouTube videos. I would not be able to enjoy the night sky the way I do without the influence of Alyn and so many others. I said a prayer for Alyn as I was capturing the image above, thanking God for the gift Alyn has been to so many.
Enjoy learning how to use your camera to take nice images of the night sky from someone who I consider one of my teachers and inspirations. Another resource to help you plan your star image is a website that gives you daily star charts specific to where you live called Stellarium Web Online. Click HERE to see what your skies will look like tonight!
