Hello all, here is my first attempt at stitching a few shots together whilst shooting the Milkyway back in July. This is what would look like a naked eye view from my home in Ireland, with the last quarter moon rising at left. It is an assembly of 3 shots taken in the early hours of July 7th 2007 at near 1am local time using Canon Photostitch. Canon 400D, 18mm lens at f3.5, 120 second exposures at ISO800, piggyback C8.

I hope you like it..and don't mind the seams, as I tried photoshop, but I could'nt get them out...
Keith..

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1035/...0d090688_o.jpg

Being an amateur observer only, I spend a lot of evenings just sitting in a lawn chair and viewing the Milky Way thru binoculars. Looks like you caught Jupiter and Antares off to the right.

Thanks for the great pic Keith!

Hi Keith - great shot! Have you tried by any chance running the individual images through AutoStitch, available here?

One of the other great astrophotographers on this forum, Paul Campbell if I remember correctly, referred me to this free software - it does all the stitching automatically, and it is a whole lot easier to use than PT Assembler, which is a "pay" software.

Clear skies, and thanks for posting this! I need to try this from the local mountains or the desert some time!

Paul

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wowww thats one beautiful image!!!
i have canon powershot sd 750 and im wondering if i can take pictures like that?

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Thanks guys, there's nothing like sitting back in a deckchair on a warm summer night looking at the milkyway with your eyes!

I'll try autostitch and see how it turns out..and definitely do that in the mountains or desert next year Paul !!!

It's quite easy, all you have to do is piggyback your camera on a motrised and roughly polar aligned mount, set up a wide field lens, and put the camera on it's side to capture a large part of the milkyway, these 3 shots are two minutes each...

France 113, I'm not sure about your camera, this was done with a Canon 400D, why don't you try setting your camera on 'bulb' if it has thar, or maximum exposure time...see what you get...

Clear Skies!
Keith..

Keith you have a awesome wide shot of the Milky Way. Way cool my friend.

Isn't it wonderful to sit back and take in the whole sky now and then.
Thanks for the image. Lovely that the sea cooperated to let you get an image so close to the horizon.

Kind regards
Matt

France113,

your camera has a maxium exposure time of 15 seconds, and if you live in the city that isnt enough, if you can find if the camera has the "bulb" feature, I think it does, set the ISOto800 or 1600 and you might need an equatorial mount tripod though...

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