Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 54

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
OCTOBER 2023 OBSERVING
First Exposure by Tony Puerzer
Detailed Wide-Angle Astrophotos
S
Overlapping frames allow you to capture generous swaths of sky in high resolution.
tunning, wide-field images of the
night sky are possible with nothing
more than a modern digital camera,
a fast wide-angle lens, and a sturdy
tripod. Add a dark-sky location with a
compelling landscape, and you have all
the ingredients necessary for an awardworthy
photograph. Still, there's room
for improvement.
As impressive as typical wide-angle
shots can be, it's always a bit disappointing
when you zoom in to examine
the details. Deep-sky objects are rendered
as nothing more than indistinct
blobs of color just a few pixels wide.
Even with the tremendous resolution
of modern camera sensors, wide-angle
54 OCTOBER 2023 * SKY & TELESCOPE
lenses simply can't deliver enough detail
to display small objects clearly.
Luckily there's a trick you can
employ to create extremely high-resolution,
wide-angle images. The " trick "
is to use a longer focal-length lens and
stitch multiple, overlapping frames
into a single, highly detailed, widefield
image. Although such photos take
more time and planning to create, the
resulting resolution lets you explore the
complexity and breathtaking beauty of
the night sky down to the pixel level.
Connecting the Shots
I have to admit my first attempt at
using this technique was a total failure.
Back in the film days, I tried to
create a wide-field panoramic image
of the Milky Way by pasting together
WIDE AND SHARP Left: The author cropped this expansive photo of the Cygnus Milky Way
from the 12-tile mosaic shown at right. The technique described in this article allows you to create
the kinds of photos normally produced with a wide-angle lens, but with a level of detail only
a longer-focal-length optic is capable of. Right: A total of 12 individual images (each outlined in
white) were combined to create this mosaic. Each individual, 2-minute exposure was captured with
a Canon 50-mm f/1.4 lens working at f/2.8 and an astro-modified Canon 60D camera working at
ISO 1600. The resulting image file is about 200 megapixels in size and shows incredible detail.

Sky & Telescope - October 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky & Telescope - October 2023

Contents
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - Cover1
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - Cover2
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 1
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - Contents
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 3
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 4
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 5
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 6
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 7
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 8
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 9
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 10
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 11
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 12
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 13
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 14
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 15
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 16
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 17
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 18
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 19
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 20
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 21
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 22
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 23
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 24
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 25
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 26
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 27
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 28
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 29
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 30
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 31
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Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 33
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 34
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 35
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 36
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 37
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 38
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Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 40
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 41
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 42
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 43
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Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 45
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 46
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 47
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Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 49
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 50
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 51
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Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 53
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 54
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 55
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 56
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 57
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 58
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Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 62
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 63
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Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - Cover3
Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - Cover4
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