Dan Stein photo of the Milky Way in the sky over a snow covered landscape
Big Slidebow. A 39 image panorama of the entire Milky Way arch as captured from the summit of a hike in the Adirondacks, NY. I used my star tracker to capture the star images along with a panorama head mounted to the tracker to make the overlap calculations for each panel seamless and then waited around until blue hour to capture the foreground with the camera in the exact same position. All images captured with my Z 6 and NIKKOR Z 35mm f/1.8 S.

Dan Stein has a day job. Nights though, are for astrophotography. Dan—who considers himself to be a creator because as he says, “he’s not simply photographing a scene, but showcasing an experience”—can spend months or years planning for a specific image.

Dan’s foray into astrophotography began when he was a freshman in college and had an assignment to draw the phases of the moon. As he explains it, he can’t draw so he talked his professor into letting him photograph the phases of a moon using a DSLR. That brought an invitation to view and photograph a meteor shower at a nearby dark sky location and as he says, “That night I literally took a shot in the dark and fell in love with astrophotography.”

Dan Stein photo of star trails over the Adirondack Mountains, NY
The Beginning of the World. Over 5 hours of images combined to illustrate the path of the stars as the Earth rotates seen over the Adirondack Mountains, NY. Peak fall foliage and a cloud inversion illuminate the landscape below. All images captured with my Z 7 and NIKKOR Z 50mm f/1.8 S.

Why astrophotography?

Astrophotography is rewarding on so many levels. There are nights where you might be half asleep shooting a meteor shower, then BAM! One massive meteor streaks across the sky and suddenly you feel more alive than ever. It is this very sense of pure awe of the show for which the cosmos display for us.

Dan says the more he shoots, the more challenges he’ll create for himself.

There are no boundaries in how I can create a piece that speaks to me. Maybe it is going for an even more difficult hike or trying to achieve even more detail in my shots by mosaicing while tracking or going for a scene that combines elements of both deep space astrophotography and nightscape astrophotography. All of this combined allows for each night under the stars to be even more rewarding.

Astrophotography 101

There are a lot of techniques I use to photograph our sky, oftentimes I combine them as well. I use a portable star tracker which I can take on hikes with me. While this complicates the whole process, the tracker allows me to capture a ton of detail in our night sky.

A star tracker—also known as an equatorial mount—basically allows you to move the camera as the earth moves when taking long exposure photos of the night sky. Without one you won’t be able to take a very long exposure.

Depending on the image being created, Dan may also stack images, combining differing exposures for the sky vs the foreground landscape. Stacking, which uses software in post-production also gets rid of noise and is critical when shooting deep space objects like galaxies or nebulae.

Dan Stein photo of the M33 galaxy
Messier 33, also known as the Triangulum galaxy. 170 30-second exposures were combined taken at 500mm using my Nikon Z 6, Mount Adapter FTZ, with the AF-S NIKKOR 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR and my portable small star tracker. Taken from a dark sky spot in PA.

Danscapes

Visit Dan’s website and you’ll see a gallery of Danscapes. We had to ask, just what are Danscapes? They’re Dan’s take on landscapes. “Since I am mostly an astro guy at heart, I figured I would just put a twist on the word landscape by flipping around the letters a bit to spell my name,” he explains.

Dan Stein photo of the Milky Way in the sky over a lake and mountains
Nikon Photo Contest Winning Image. By the Bells. The Milky Way setting over the Maroon Bells in Colorado. A record snowpack year allowed for snow to linger around long enough where the summer alignment of the Milky Way atop the snow-capped peaks was able to be captured. I used my star tracker to capture the stars and turned the tracker off to shoot the foreground images in the exact same camera position otherwise both the reflection in the lake below as well as the foreground would have become blurry from the tracker. But I still wanted to get a nice clean and sharp foreground, so in order to reduce the noise due to everything being so dark, I shot a bunch of images all back to back and stacked them. All images captured with my D850 and AF-S NIKKOR 14-24 f/2.8G ED.

Nikon Photo Contest

A couple years back, one of Dan’s nighttime landscapes, By the Bells (above) was one of the winning images of the annual Nikon Photo Contest. Dan says that it’s one of his favorite images of all time. He tells us the story behind the image which features the Milky Way.

Nearly 5 years ago my friends and I went on a road trip through Colorado and the Southwest US. We arrived at the location and I set up my tripod but the sky was 100% clouds. After shining our flashlights around the perimeter of the lake we could see a good number of eyes watching us and decided to retreat to avoid becoming dinner.

The next year, I attempted the shot again. I’d driven offroad for nearly four hours and was on the last leg of my drive when I was stopped by a police officer wondering why I was out at such a late hour. I showed him my camera and explained what I was going to be photographing. The stop had cost me time. I rushed to the location and began my setup. I only had a few minutes to shoot before blue hour began which would wash away the Milky Way. Finally, I got my shot. I had a dilemma though. Stay another 30 minutes and risk missing my flight home to get the foreground and lake stack layers as clean as possible or shoot a quick noisy shot to play it safe. I took the risk, even though I had to be at work early the next morning.

Winning!

I love this image, but I never thought it could win any awards, and a Nikon award for that matter. I honestly thought the email was fake when I received word that I had won. I won a Z 5 full frame mirrorless camera which I use for b-roll/reels.

Being shy about bragging on social media, Dan’s friends took it upon themselves to spread the love on his behalf. He’s received positive feedback in regards to winning and about the image itself.

Dan is one to pay it forward. He’s been fortunate enough to have folks offer pointers when he’s been stuck, and so he feels it’s important to return the favor to people who may seek inspiration in his own work.

I think laying out all of the tools and techniques I use to create my shots also demonstrates the transparency in this process. Often times an astrophotograph can be misunderstood for being digital art or altered heavily, when in reality there is just a significant creative process behind each image.

Dan Stein photo of the M31 Galaxy
Messier 31, the Andromeda Galaxy. The relative size of this galaxy is 5x larger relative to the Moon in our sky, however it is too dim to be seen like the Moon. This image consists of only a little over an hour of data taken using my Z 6, Mount Adapter FTZ and AF-S NIKKOR 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR with my equatorial mount from the heavily light polluted skies of NJ.

Dark Skies—Few and Far Between

One thing I want to point out is that as light pollution spreads, dark skies are becoming even more challenging to find. Pair that with waiting for the phase of the moon to be where you need it (new moon as opposed to full moon) and the weather to cooperate, then throw in the mix of needing to hike up mountains to capture certain landscapes—astrophotography requires a lot of practice and patience.

Dan says he knows there is still much he can learn. “I encourage anyone who wants to try astrophotography to acknowledge that there will be a lot of ups and downs, learning does not happen overnight,” he says, adding, “it is important to embrace the difficult nights out just as much as the successful ones. Have patience, and remember the skies will be there for us, even if that means going a little further out of the way to find them.”

Dan Stein

Dan Stein is a hobbyist photographer living and working in NJ who can be found engaging in practically anything outdoors—biking, climbing, skiing, snow shoeing, yoga, and of course… backpacking and hiking. He enjoys taking his camera gear and hitting the trails, which allows him to create art that he enjoys, and also something that provokes inspiration and joy amongst his audience. “Photography is a way for me to appreciate what we have. It allows me to explore new places, and to see the world differently with a more open mind.”

Go to Dan’s website at: https://danieljstein.com

Check him out on Instagram.