ABSTRACT
Nothing beats a truly dark sky for capturing the grandeur of the Milky Way. The Milky Way has good and not-so-good seasons, however, and the summer months are often the best pictorially. At the same time, this means short and late nights. Focusing a wide-angle lens through the viewfinder is almost impossible on a DSLR. The upward tilt causes obvious converging verticals and the sky is indistinct against the bright buildings. It was obvious that perspective correction, color balance and tonal enhancements were needed for the sky and buildings. The image layer stack usefully shows the history of the processing steps, any of which can be edited at will and at any time. This chapter introduces some good practice during image acquisition, including the need for a rigid support, confining to the maximum exposure duration and an alternative method to focus accurately on stars with a wide-angle lens.
