ShowcaseFirst ever Milky Way, too noisy or am I being dramatic

Drove out to the Dales on Saturday (darker than my back garden in Leeds, which is basically a car park with a moon) with the 250D and the kit lens at 18mm f/3.5. 20 seconds, ISO 3200, about 15 frames.

You can see the core low down over a dry stone wall, with the glow from Skipton creeping in on the left. Looks alright small but when I zoom in it's like a sandstorm. Do I need a faster lens? Everyone says get a Samyang 14mm and I'm halfway to ordering one. Be gentle, first go.

A faster lens will help eventually, but don't spend money yet. At 18mm on APS-C the NPF rule puts you around 10-12 seconds for pinpoint stars, so at 20s you're getting trailing as well as noise, and the two together read as mush at 100%.

Two free things first. You shot 15 frames, so stack them (Sequator or Siril, both free). That cuts the noise by roughly the square root of the number of frames, so close to 4x. Next time drop to 10 seconds and shoot 40 frames instead of 15, you'll get round stars and even more to stack.

And check a light pollution map before you go out again. Skipton is only a few miles from where you were. Twenty minutes further north into the Dales can easily be a full Bortle class darker, and that's worth more than any lens you can buy. Your sky is the biggest variable, not the lens. If you still want a faster lens after a few stacked sessions from a darker site, by all means, but you'll know what you're buying it for.

rjhowell said:

Your sky is the biggest variable, not the lens

my wallet thanks you. Siril downloaded, slightly scared of it

Loiner said:

with the glow from Skipton creeping in on the left

Try the north side of the Dales, or Kielder if you can get that far. Skipton's glow will always be there in that direction. And go out and shoot more of them. The fifth attempt will be miles better than the first.

Wide and slow is fine if you stack, I do it with a 14-30 f/4 all the time and nobody's ever looked at one and said "shame about the aperture". Welcome to the hobby that wrecks your sleep schedule. Bring coffee.

My routine, for what it's worth: 20 to 30 lights at whatever NPF says, then 20 or so darks with the lens cap on at the same settings before I pack up, because the sensor's at the same temperature then. Stack the sky in Sequator, do a separate long single exposure for the foreground while there's still a bit of blue hour or with some low light painting, and blend the two in Photoshop. Sounds like a lot, but it's mostly standing in a field waiting.

For comparison, my last one: Z7 II, 14mm, f/4, 15s, ISO 6400, 20 frames stacked. And a dad joke for free: why did the astrophotographer break up with his girlfriend? He needed space.

stacked them in Siril. it's like a different photo. took me two goes to work out the registration step but the YouTube video sorted it. still a car park sky but a slightly better car park. going to try north of Grassington next new moon like Ash said. thanks all

Big difference from one round of stacking. Darker site next and you'll see another jump.