How to Photograph the Night Sky, Even in Light-Polluted Skies: A Tutorial from Justin Ng

By Nancy Atkinson - June 9, 2014 at 4:07 PM UTC | Observing
140410-MBS-Milky-Way-Reflection-w.jpg

We feature

A LOT of astrophotos

here on Universe Today, and we get many comments about them, too -- with some people saying they could NEVER take photos of the night sky because they live in cities, or are too close to street or yard lights or other causes of light pollution.

Now, award-winning astrophotographer

Justin Ng

from Singapore has created a tutorial for how to photograph the night sky, even in light-polluted area.

"This tutorial shows you how I photograph the Milky Way that's obscured by the extreme light pollution in Singapore, using photography equipments that you may already have and a workflow that probably works on most versions of Photoshop," Justin writes, adding that the type of photo processing he uses in Photoshop can be achieved without purchasing additional plugins.

Justin says that taking pictures of the night sky is a way you can "do your part to promote public awareness of astronomy and the importance of preserving the beauty of our night skies through your images. And I am going to show you how you can do just that using photography equipment that you may already have and a workflow that probably works in most versions of Photoshop."

For this tutorial, you will need some previous knowledge about basic photography and post-processing.

You can access the full tutorial here on Justin's website.

[caption id="attachment_112454" align="aligncenter" width="580"]

The rising Milky Way at Sentosa Island in Singapore. Credit and copyright: Justin Ng. [/caption]

Check out more of his work at his

website

, on

Facebook

or

G+

.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com