Capturing Milky Way THE MAGNIFICENT

Get ready for the return of late summer nights under the stars as Will Gater presents a beginners’ guide to photographing our ever-changing home Galaxy

- Will Gater

As the lighter nights begin to swing around in May, one thing I like to do is fire up Stellarium and plan out all the things I want to photograph when proper darkness returns in the late summer. Almost always, the target that occupies me the most, no matter how many times I've imaged it, is the Milky Way. Widefield, nightscape or long-focal-length close-up - it doesn't matter what format we're talking about, there's always something our Galaxy can offer.

It's important to think ahead when it comes to Milky Way imaging. The view changes from month to month, week to week and even hour to hour throughout the night. And the best time to photograph our Galaxy from the UK, in my opinion, is the first weeks of August. Not only has astronomical darkness come back for most of us in the UK by that point, but you also don't have to wait all night for the band of the Milky Way to be positioned close to the meridian. Plus, from a composition perspective I love how the core of the Galaxy and the swathe of its spiral arms, arcing up into the eastern sky, are positioned as midnight approaches.

If you've never dipped your toes into the waters of Milky Way astrophotography, now's the perfect time to get prepped for this season. So read on as we introduce you to shooting the spectacular celestial metropolis that we all call home.

Use the right kit

You can achieve spectacular images even with a fairly modest setup

One of the really nice things about photographing the Milky Way is that there are lots of ways to do it, with lots of different types, and levels, of equipment. This means it's one of those targets that you can start off imaging as a beginner and keep coming back to year after year as you get more experience, often finding new and different ways of doing things as you do.