Milky Way Untracked: A First Attempt Under Imperfect Skies

Astrophotography is a journey, and like any good journey, the first steps are often the most challenging and rewarding. Today, we're diving into a fantastic first attempt at capturing the majestic Milky Way, even when the conditions weren't exactly ideal.

The Setup and the Struggle

The photographer utilized an unmodified Canon EOS R8 with a humble RF 24-50mm f4.5-6.3 kit lens, zoomed to 24mm and set at f4.5. The exposure settings were 100 shots at 8 seconds each with an ISO of 3200. Post-processing was handled by Siril and Darktable.

A key challenge encountered was the significant vignetting and distortion from the kit lens, rendering the corners of the raw images completely black. While calibration frames (darks, biases, flats) were taken, they couldn't be used directly due to these lens characteristics. The plan was to load the raw camera data into Darktable for lens correction, allowing the processed linear images to be used for stacking.

Battling Light Pollution

Adding to the difficulties, the shooting location was Bortle 5, bordering on Bortle 6 due to the overwhelming presence of bright blue fishing boat lights nearby. So intense were these lights that the Milky Way was barely visible even in the raw camera frames.

The Results

Despite these hurdles, the resulting image is a testament to perseverance. It's a beautiful capture, and many in the community have praised it as an amazing achievement for a Bortle 5-6 environment and for a first try.

This story highlights that even with entry-level gear and less-than-perfect skies, the pursuit of capturing the cosmos is achievable and incredibly fulfilling. Keep looking up!