Landscape Milky Way with Platypod by Bob Coates

Words and Photos by Bob Coates, A Platypod Pro
Edited by Eryka Bagwell

Milky Way in position over Cathedral Rock in Sedona, AZ

"I knew I had to hang out to wait for the Milky Way to slide into position over Cathedral Rock in Sedona. I was perched on Secret Slickrock and had made sunset photos. Since I was going to be there anyway, I decided to capture a time lapse. I mounted the camera on a Platypod eXtreme with two Platypod Handles and the Platyball Elite. I often will pack this set-up in place of a full size tripod. At the very least, I carry it as a second camera support because I often will work two cameras, one as a time lapse, and the second exploring various compositions. The OM-1 camera has a built in Interval Timer. I set my exposure for six seconds with one second in between frames. This timing ensured that each exposure would be without any star trailing, AKA Spot Stars. That information, and much more, is available in an APP called PhotoPills. If you are going to photograph the night sky and Milky Way the $10.99 price for it is an incredible deal. You can find PhotoPills wherever you download your apps." 

My traveling camera support. Platypod eXtreme, 2 Handles and the Platyball

"The time lapse ended up being a little over 500 images which resulted in a 22 second video. The beauty of capturing the time lapse, is that it allows for the choice of exactly where I wanted the Galactic Core in relation to the rock formation. I choose ten images from the end of the session to blend together to help control the noise that results from using a higher ISO setting. In this case the ISO was 6400. The ten images were processed in a software APP called Starry Landscape Stacker. The software aligns the images and automatically looks at the varying noise patterns between images and removes it." 

Layers palette from Photoshop with lots of Adjustment Layers to ease into the color and tones verses getting garish results

"As a side note, when processing Milky Way images, make incremental changes using adjustment layers to keep from turning the colors and processing to garish colors."

Yours in Creative Photography,
Bob Coates - A Platypod Pro

You can view more of Bob Coates' incredible works by visiting his website and/or his Instagram page.