What are /r/LandscapeAstro's favorite Products & Services?

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I use Stellarium to find the position of the milky way and The Photographer's Ephemeris for info on sunset times. I believe both have phone apps available.

> I'm looking for advice on how to know where to point the camera to get milky way shots

http://www.stellarium.org/

So, I use this to plan my night shots. You can plugin custom coordinates or you can pick from the prefilled list of places available. You can roll the time forwards and backwards. For you wanted to shoot the Milky Way, there is a setting to turn up the visibility of the milky way so that you can clearly see it. There are a lot of useful features to stellarium that I don't have time to cover right now. I didn't use a tutorial or anything, the user interface is useful enough to figure out or to Google things if you don't know what they mean.

> what can I achieve by stacking

In short - stacking is a method to get the most identifiable true light out of the image(s?) while reducing noise. I've watched some tutorials on it, but I still don't understand it fully. You currently have the perfect setup for widefield, so I don't know if you really need to stack, but I'll let others correct me here.

I almost always direct people to this youtube video as this is how I got started.

Ditch the ballhead, get yourself a decent pano head with locking screws. I use a cheap one from Amazon which works very well, I always had problems balancing the weight of the camera/lens on my ballhead on my various tracking mounts over the years. Moving to a pano head has made imaging on the tracking mount 1000x easier and reduces the chances of having images wasted due to vibrations/camera slumping. This is the pano head I got: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DDCWTMS/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I use a Bonfoto that I bought from Amazon. It's lightweight, has a ball head and folds down pretty small. I believe it's a Chinese knockoff of a different tripod (not sure which one), but it's served me well so far. It also has a hook underneath to hang a heavy bag from to give it extra stability without having to carry around a heavier tripod. The biggest downside is that the max height is less than 5 feet.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072NZL11B/

It's definitely tough to get it perfect, but so long as you take a test photo at infinity, and adjust from there it should work. It's also possible that the issue is you are exposing for too long? 50mm doesn't give you a lot of wiggle room for landscape astro, so you might be seeing star trails instead of blurriness? Also, is your camera/tripod setup 100% secure from wind and other movement? If you don't have a remote, set a 2 second timer on photos so you don't shake the camera, as that will cause noticeable blur. Also here's a good one: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pa.lightpollutionmap

https://unsplash.com/photos/aaYR1flm8M4

Captured June 29th around 1AM or so

On top of Spruce Knob, WV in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia. Rocks just off the walking path made for a fantastic foreground.

Sony a6300, ISO 3200, F1.4 Sigma 16mm 1.4, 20 seconds

i have been in the exact same situation as you, and i think everybody has. dude its all about the settings and the weather conditions. it's best if you take pictures when it's new moon, or close to new moon. also play with the settings and take a lot of pictures. have it at the lowest f/ number. bump the ISO up to like 2000 or even higher (it will result in more noise though) just play with it and have fun. and properly one of the most important things there are.... get away from the city and light pollution. it's really annoying when you shoot a picture and then realise that the picture is blown out or totally orange. that is my tips :D. the camera is okay, but if you get more serious about it buy another lens with a lower f/ number, such as 1.4 - 2.4. There are Samyang or rokinon lenses which a lot of people use, and they are pretty cheap, but also a lot of them are manual. software that i use is Photoshop, but lightroom is better. there are also the free software called "Polarr" which i used for a long time. i will drop a link for it. i wish you the best of luck in the future, and have fun with it. https://www.polarr.co/

I use the lens warmer to stop dew from forming. In the winter months when it gets below 30 degrees, that’s usually when I put it on. Here’s the one that I use, https://www.amazon.com/Temperature-Regulator-Universal-Telescopic-Heating/dp/B07WJG9B5P

Not OP but one trick is if you have a star tracker you can just deliberately misalign it to get this effect. Or just buy this

I use this tripod as my backpacking tripod. its about $50 over your budget but it does rock solid of a job with my Sony A7iii and Tamron 28-75 and Canon 70-200 (with the mc11 adapter). basically what im saying is that its a bad a$$ tripod for being so small and light.

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Also, get yourself a shutter release cable they are about $20 on amazon.

I had that same issue! I bought a cheap remote on Amazon and it is amazing, fixed all of the issues, and honestly, I prefer it. It’s wireless and has a physical shutter button instead of a display with no feedback, plus it doesn’t make any changes to your settings because it basically acts like a normal trigger

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017GY5KWA

I use an app called PanoramaCrop to get a nice, uncropped overview plus scrolling for details like this.

As far as the camera goes, I would definitely recommend checking out what you can get used. You could probably find a setup with multiple lenses and other there is for the same price as a starter DSLR brand new.

As far as apps go, I use these two and find them super helpful and easy to use (Google Play Store links, sorry if you use iPhone, I have no idea what's available):

Moon

Sky Map

Yea, I was thinking this shutter remote, and I already have a nice tripod. Are there any other scope illuminators that can be bought? I don't have easy access to a 3D printer. Also, do I need to get a ball head? I typically shoot film, so I just have this video tripod head. Any ball head's you would recommend?

For your lens kit I would recommend the following kit:

• Canon 70-200 f2.8
• Sigma 18-35 f1.8
• Panasonic 8-18 f2.8-4

Depending on the weight of the 70-200 f2.8 you might want to bring the f4.

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I frequent JTree VERY often (about 1x a month in the winter months) there is SO MUCH to do in that park, I highly recommend this book for things to do and look at. Let me know if you have any questions about things to check out and or see.

I'm a pretty simple person meaning that I buy a lot of my gear from Amazon. I love my Manfrotto and Gitzo tripods but they are just way too expensive! I recently started dwelling into vloggin with my camera and iPhone so I have been using my lightweight tripods way more often now and just leaving them in my car.

My favourite is this tripod I picked up from Amazon for an amazing deal! I picked this over the others because it comes with a smartphone adapter, carrying case, and waterproof bag. Here are the measurements:

• Recommended max load weight is 7 lbs (3.2kg) for best performance.
• Weighs 1.9 lbs; extends from 18.9 inches to 56 inches when center post is fully extended (48 cm to 148 cm).

It's a great good beginner tripod but as other have mentioned Benro, Manfrotto, RRS, etc are great options too. You might want to look into ZoMei and Gitzo if you budget permits it.

Sirui T-004X Aluminum, I use this tripod for backpacking.

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https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FG7XASK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

For a $65 tripod, I've been impressed with this one on Amazon. You're going to want to verify the fasteners are all right when you get it, but it's held up very well.

Ravelli APGL4 Professional 70" Tripod with Adjustable Pistol Grip Head and Heavy Duty Carry Bag https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003SQEAY0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_eFDuCb48NK1DE

I currently use the Manfrotto MT055prox3 for the majority of my non-backpacking imaging, it's a good solid tripod with a 20lb payload capacity.

https://www.amazon.com/Manfrotto-MT055XPRO3-Aluminium-3-Section-Horizontal/dp/B00IQ7PT50/ref=dp_ob_title_ce

here is for the cheap adapters. this does not allow any use of auto focus or in lens stabilization. Thisone does support all the lens features. although the auto focus doesn't always work depending on the lens.

I would compare used against Amazon new and refurb models. Used may not always win, people get hung up on how much they paid for it a couple of years ago. Here's a Canon T5 refurb for $350. If you are willing to buy a couple of revisions behind, right as a model is fading, you can get new or nearly new cameras for great prices.

Your low budget may put you solidly in the used category. Unfortunately, sensor quality declines especially fast for low light shots, so a good body is a smart initial investment.

Lens is important too, the Canon kit 18-55 is reasonably good as a starter. Eventually, you will spend more on lenses than camera bodies, and they stick around. A bad lens will be bad on a good body.

Tripod, memory card, and maybe a memory card reader should be in your budget. A remote trigger is nice, but the self-timer is free. Don't shake the camera while shooting to prevent blur.

I purchased this Dolica tripod, which comes with decent ball head, last summer and have used it extensively with my iOptron Skytracker and all my lenses (even the Tamron 150-600mm which is a monster):

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008JE4S6G?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

Couple things.

1. The camera itself is probably fine, its ISO perforamnce wont be quite as good as higher end cameras but you should be able to get decent shots at ISo 1600 and 3200 with some processing to clean up noise grain.

2. Your 18mm is not actually 18mm as you are on a crop sensor its probably closer to 29mm~ So you might look into a wider and faster lens.

3. as an example I purchased this Rokinon 16mm f2 lens for fairly cheap, and achieved this shot. While not amazing I think its pretty good. The lens ~~is~~ is not full auto aperture and focus, but for this activity its no big deal, actually preferred.

Lower your exposure time! Rule of 500 is your friend! 500/(focal length x crop factor) = seconds

Most astro shots are at 3200-6400 ISO, try that next time. The Milky Way is pretty much behind the sun now but in April or May it will be back out and you can try to get those.

I'd suggest a Star Chart similar app, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.escapistgames.starchart&hl=en . Keep up the effort!