Welcome to part II of the Milkyway series! This was released over on Patreon a week ago - head over there for a look if you’d like to support what i’m doing here and get early access to these posts - not to mention a whole lot more that are Patron only! Or look out for Part III in a couple of weeks time!
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Planning your shoot is probably where at least 75% of your image is created. Knowing where and when you're shooting goes a long way to creating the best image you can! There are a bunch of tools available to us photographers in order to make this go as smoothly as possible. So lets start with..... where to start!
The Weather
There's no Milkyway photography when there are clouds in the way. All the best planning in the world when it comes to your gear, location and timing means nothing if its heaving down with rain. That's the sad reality when it comes to shooting the Milkyway, or any other astrophotography - we are at the mercy of the weather.
Accurate weather information is tough, but there are a few apps you can use to help get you in the right place. Local weather apps are the best place to begin and give you a rough idea of when a window of clear weather might open for you, but "Clear Outside" is an app id highly recommend getting for more detailed forecasts.
As you can see, the level of detail in the description of cloud cover, rain prediction and fog potential is incredible - and you can even check to see if the International Space Station (I.S.S) is visible. It also covers sunset and sunrise times, and where the moon is. As you can see I'm targeting a Milkyway shoot at Tarawera on Friday the 12th/Early morning Saturday the 13th - not much cloud cover so is looking good at the mo!
This app is fantastic to plan landscape shoots as well. Nothing like seeing a bunch of high cloud at sunrise or sunset near your favourite location!
Dark Skies.
Now you can try to shoot the Milkyway in the middle of the city, but you will be fighting an uphill battle! Light pollution is something you'll hear photographers talk about - what that is, is the city light downing out the stars in the sky. Ever been out in the countryside or on the coast and looked up at the sky at night and realised there are a lot more stars than you remember seeing back in town? That's light pollution rearing its ugly, well lit head.
Thankfully here in New Zealand we are spoiled for dark skies and most of us can find some reasonably dark places to shoot within an hour from home. To find these places, we can simply go to www.darksitefinder.com and use this worldwide map of light pollution
This map of NZ shows how much we have in the world of dark skies. The yellow, orange and green areas are really no deal zones when it comes to shooting the milkyway, but the blue and no colour zones, perfect. Lets have a look at my Tarawera spot:
Nice! We're in the blue zone. Conditions should be ideal!
Better yet, we're pointing away from any potential light pollution. This should be perfect for us provided we can figure out where the Milkyway is...
How do you even know where the Milkyway is when you can't really see it?
Dark skies really do help with seeing the Milkyway with your unaided eyes, but the core itself can be tough to spot without experience. This is where Photopills comes in!
Using this app, you can plan your milkyway shoot to the minute! To. The. Minute. It shows clearly where it is, where it will be at a given time and even has augmented reality features that allow you to previsualise on location, exactly where the Milkyway will be and when. It's an incredible app, and is a must have for any prospective Milkyway shooter and is also extremely handy for landscape shoots too. It'll show you exactly where and when the sun will rise and set, where the moon will rise and set etc etc.
Make your plan!
So! You have armed yourself with your apps, and now you need to have a plan. Notice that the title of this series is "The JarredSpec Introduction to Milkyway Landscape Photography for beginners", so all the ideas around shooting landscapes still apply, its just instead of epic clouds, we have epic stars!
So the key is, foreground interest, we need something to lead the eye into the frame and into the sky. My plan for this Tarawera shoot is pretty simple, I want to shoot down this pier at the lake, with the milkyway rising in line with it on the horizon and into the sky. As you can see in the pic below we can use photopills to figure out exactly when thats going to happen:
That thin white line is where the Milkyway will be on the horizon - lines up with the pier at 2:09 AM! Bonus is the galaxy arches over the headland slightly to the right which will look interesting.
And, if we wait for not quite an hour and a half we can line it up so the core is directly above the pier - the thicker of the white lines.
So! There we have it! Using some cool tools to plan our Milkyway mission! If you’ve been following over on Instagram you’ll have already seen the results of this mission. Head on over and check it out!
Feel free to ask any further questions you might have below! Happy to answer anything!