Shooting the Milky Way in the Midwest

I recently shared a few images of the Milky Way that I shot here in Indiana. Several people have commented that they didn’t realize you could get images like this in Indiana, and I’ll admit, it isn’t the easiest thing to do. I wasn’t even sure myself when I set out to try. So, I thought I’d put a little something together to share what I learned during the process of making these images. Hopefully, when you’re done reading, you’ll be able to plan your own Milky Way photography adventure.

The basic steps are as follows:

1. Find a dark sky
2. Plan your composition
3. Determine the optimal time of month/year
4. Watch for good weather

While it is important to have clear skies, or at least mostly clear skies, when shooting the Milky Way, mother nature is not the first thing standing in your way. The light pollution of civilization is. Here in Indiana, there is plenty of it. So, unless you can get your town to collectively turn out the lights, you’re going to have to get further from it.

You might think, I’ll just drive out-of-town and set up. That might work, depending on where you are, but more than likely you’re going to have to pick the right direction to drive. To figure this out, you’ll want to take a look at a light pollution map. There are a number of sources out there. I use the photographers ephemeris (TPE), not because they pay me (because they do not), but because their web app is free to use and their mobile apps, while not free, have a lot of other useful functionality. In the image below, you can see just how difficult it is to find a low light pollution spot in Indiana. The white areas have more pollution and the blue areas have less. You’ll notice that there aren’t any blue areas in Indiana.

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The pin on this map is where I worked from to capture my images and the lines going easy and west are the azimuth the sun and moon rise and set. Another good feature of TPE. While the Milky Way is always in the southern sky, an important thing to keep in mind is the position and orientation for your composition. When it comes to planning your composition, knowing the exact position in the sky is also important.

Next you’ll have to deal with the terrain. So ask yourself, what type of composition are you going for? If you don’t want a foreground, then it may not matter much, but if you want to have the horizon in the shot, like I was trying to achieve, terrain is going to probably require some advance location scouting. Good compositions are easily spoiled by unexpected trees, so do your research, it’ll be worth the effort. To figure out the orientation of the Milky Way at a given time, there are a number of good options. 

I use Star Walk 2 (iOS, Android)(also not sponsored), they also offer an ad-free version for a few dollars. The augmented reality features are really helpful. This way, you can line up your shot knowing at a given time where the Milky Way will be, making set up time in the dark, go that much faster.

Once you’ve got a location picked out and a composition in mind, you’ll have to watch the timing relative to the phase of the moon. I’ve not spent much time trying this with a full moon, but the sky is darker around the new moon. If you’re going to be travelling very far, you might want to check into this before you plan your location and composition.

I arrived at my spot around 11pm and spent about four hours shooting. Even though the Milky Way is above the horizon around 8pm this time of year, you likely won’t see it until well after sunset.

Next we’ll cover some camera basics, if you’re already familiar with camera settings for astrophotography, you should have what you need to get started.

Camera basics for shooting the Milky Way

1. Ensure your camera has a manual mode for focus, aperture, shutter speed and ISO
2. Get comfortable with adjusting settings in Manual (you don’t want to waste your time learning this in the middle of the night.)
3. Shoot in RAW. You can always export a JPG later.
4. Use a solid tripod (it doesn’t have to be expensive, but it needs to be sturdy)
5. Use a remote shutter release or use your camera’s built in timer to reduce camea shake
6. Focus: This is tricky because autofocus won’t work on stars. Either set up your camera in the daylight and focus to infinity or use your cameras screen to zoom in on a single star and adjust until it appears its smallest. If your foreground is too close, you may have to adjust focus while shooting and stack/blend images in post.
7. The 500 rule. Unless you want star trails, you’ll want to figure out the longest exposure time your setup will allow. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but it should get you close, you may still want to adjust a little.
   For a full-frame DSLR, the rule works like this: Take 500 divided by your focal length to get your maximum exposure time in seconds (i.e. 500/24mm=20.8, max shutter speed 20 seconds, always round down).
   For a crop-sensor DSLR, you’ll need to multiply your focal length by the crop factor BEFORE you divide into 500. For those who like formulas; 500/(focal length x crop factor)=max shutter speed. Crop factor is typically 1.5x or 1.6x, but may vary.
8. Aperture setting: Unless you have a detailed foreground that is close to your camera, start with the widest aperture your lens has. In my case, it was f/3.5.
9. ISO. Start out around ISO 2000 and adjust up or down until you’re happy with your exposure.
10. Practice! I’ve watched videos and read about this before trying it, but you really need to do it for it to all come together.

That’s about it folks. Once you have these basics, you should be able to start shooting. I’d love to see what you’ve created! Send them my way or tag me in your posts. Thanks for reading!

Let me know what you think in the comments or reach out on Facebook or Instagram.

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One last thing! If you’re not used to shooting in RAW, you might notice that your images look a little flat on your camera’s screen, but fear not, with RAW files, you have much more flexibility in post. There are lots of other tools for editing, some free, some not and some specifically for astrophotography. If there’s enough interest, I’ll put together a post on editing or possibly a video. Like and subscribe to see what’s next!

Questions, comments or suggestions for future topics, all feedback welcome and appreciated.