The Night Sky
I just went to get the mail, and while doing so, I happened to glance up at the night sky, and I was reminded of something I have been trying to do for a long time. Ever since I borrowed a Rebel for the first time about three months ago, I have been trying to take a picture of the night sky. On a television program I watched a year or so ago about the cosmos, the scientists took a regular DSLR camera, pointed it at the sky, and took a thirty minute exposure. The result was stunning. You could see millions more stars than with the naked eye, as well as one of the arms of the Milky Way galaxy (the Orion Arm, I think).
One of my photographic goals is to take a picture like this. I have tried on several occasions, but I still need to refine my technique. I need to make the camera steadier (tips on how to do this coming soon), refine the aperture setting, and find a way to focus on a tiny light in space a hundred light years away. Oh, and I also need to stop time so that the stars don’t move. I am still working on that last one.
I’ve tried to take several pics of the night sky… but my cell phone camera just doesn’t understand the difference between this shade of blue and that shade of blue, and the moon always ends up looking like an underfed star. T_T
Good luck with the stopping time! Tell me if you figure out how to do that, now I’m curious. ^_^ Also, I think you might succeed better if you didn’t live in San Diego, but actually lived someplace where you could see more stars than airplanes and satellites. Did these scientists take their picture in the country or in Chicago?
The program showed them taking the picture from a park just outside a large city filled with skyscrapers, but that does not mean that was actually where it was taken. The man made objects are a problem, but an even larger problem is the light pollution caused by cities and lights on the ground that blocks out the light coming from space.