Milky Way Over Crater Lake: A First-Time Astro-Panorama Adventure

Capturing the vastness of the Milky Way is a dream for many astrophotographers, and my recent trip to Crater Lake National Park during Memorial Day weekend offered the perfect opportunity. This was my first attempt at an astro-panorama, and as a relative beginner, I'm always eager to learn and improve.

The Challenge of the Snow and Tracker

My initial plan was to utilize my MSM Nomad tracker for a smooth, star-tracked panorama. However, polar aligning the tracker on the uneven, snow-covered terrain of Crater Lake proved to be more difficult than anticipated. Add to that the occasional wind gusts that threatened to shake the camera during long exposures, and I found myself facing a significant hurdle.

After several hours of troubleshooting and recalibration, I made the decision to switch gears. Instead of relying on the tracker for a single, long exposure per frame, I opted to stack multiple shorter exposures. To my surprise, this alternative approach yielded results even better than I had hoped for!

Behind the Shot: Technical Details

Here's a breakdown of the technical aspects of this particular capture:

Location: Crater Lake, OR (42.940061, -122.169148)
Date & Time: May 25th, 2025, between 12:06 am and 1:02 am
Sky: 2 rows x 13 columns, shot at 35mm, 15 x 5" exposures at f/1.4 with ISO 12800, then stacked.
Foreground: 2 rows x 13 columns, shot at 35mm, 30" exposures at f/1.4 with ISO 6400 (AI denoised in Lightroom).
Final Resolution: A staggering 31634x25431 pixels, totaling 804 megapixels!

Equipment and Workflow

My trusty gear for this expedition included:

Sony A7RV
Sony 35mm f/1.4 GM lens
PhotoPills (essential for planning)
Astrospheric and Windy (for critical cloud forecasts)
Sequator (for stacking exposures)
PTGui (for stitching the panorama)
Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom (for post-processing)

Sky Workflow:

Lightroom Adjustments: I started by correcting color temperature, exposure, and vignetting in Lightroom for each individual sky sub-exposure. Crucially, I turned off sharpening at this stage. The processed images were then exported as TIFF files.
Sequator Stacking: Each set of sky exposures was stacked using Sequator. I utilized settings such as auto brightness, HDR, medium light pollution reduction, and disabled 'intelligently aggressive'. For the ground, I used the 'freeze ground' option; otherwise, I selected 'best pixels to use sigma clipping'.
PTGui Stitching: The stacked sky frames were then stitched together in PTGui, employing a Mercator projection and enabling auto white balance.

Foreground Workflow:

The foreground processing followed a similar path, with the primary difference being the absence of stacking. The real challenge began when it came to blending the stitched foreground with the sky. The persistent yellow light pollution in the area, combined with my desktop's struggle to handle the massive 804-megapixel file (consuming over 64 GB of RAM!), made this a significant hurdle.

Milky Way Over Crater Lake

Seeking Your Expertise

While I'm incredibly pleased with the outcome, especially given the unexpected technical challenges, I'm always on the lookout for ways to improve. I would love to hear any tips, feedback, or thoughts from fellow photographers and space enthusiasts. What are your experiences with astro-panoramas, especially in challenging conditions? Let me know in the comments below!

This experience has further fueled my passion for astrophotography, and I can't wait for the next adventure under the stars.