First Milky Way Photoshoot of 2022 Season

I went out for my first Milky Way photoshoot of the year yesterday morning around 2am. The core was showing over the valley in the southeast. This was my first attempt to shoot the Milky Way and it was a lot of fun.

This is the first article of many to come as part of my Milky Way Astrophotography goal. Be sure to follow along as I provide photoshoot trip reports throughout the Milky Way season this year. I will provide info such as location of shoot, equipment used, camera settings and so much more.

We traveled up the mountain near the base of Five Fingers peak along the west side of Hwy 395 overlooking the Indian Wells valley. The sky was clear and the Milky Way was very noticeable spanning across the sky north to south over the valley.

The city lights of Ridgecrest were quite noticeable from our high vantage point. Unfortunately, we weren’t anticipating the city lights to affect our Milky Way photos as much as it did. The light pollution was very noticeable when we started taking exposures. The city lights really over exposed our images so I wasn’t able to capture what I was hoping. I did however still capture some decent shots of the milky Way.

Equipment setup for this photoshoot:

• Canon EOS R mirrorless full frame camera
• Canon RF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens
• Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 Lens
• Vanguard Veo 265ab Tripod

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Milky Way Photos

The photos below were taken between 2:30am-4:30am facing east.

This photo was taken with the following equipment and camera settings:

Time Taken = 3:01am
Canon EOS R camera
Canon 16-35mm lens
Focal Length = 16mm
Exposure Time = 13 seconds
Aperture = f/2.8
ISO = 6400

This photo was taken with the following equipment and camera settings:

Time Taken = 3:10am
Canon EOS R camera
Canon 16-35mm lens
Focal Length = 16mm
Exposure Time = 13 seconds
Aperture = f/2.8
ISO = 6400

This photo was taken with the following equipment and camera settings:

Time Taken = 3:16am
Canon EOS R camera
Canon 16-35mm lens
Focal Length = 16mm
Exposure Time = 13 seconds
Aperture = f/2.8
ISO = 3200

Conclusion

I was excited to make it out for this first photoshoot. The weather was perfect with comfortable temperatures and no wind. I attempted stacking but I wasn’t satisfied with the outcome of the images. This was the first of my Milky Way season series and I look forward to improving throughout the season.

We have some excellent dark sky regions all around us which will make some great opportunities. The plan is to take many photos from many different locations to share. Be sure to subscribe to receive notification when new content is added.

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