Astrophotography Archives - Nikon Creators

Astrophotographer Julia Icenogle on Why She Made the Move

Julia Icenogle photo of an Aurora over mountainous landscape — Z f, NIKKOR Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S at 24mm focal length, f/2.8, 4 sec, ISO 2000. I’ve chased the aurora many times, but nothing could have prepared me for the fantastic display on the night of May 10, 2024. At first I was worried that the ridge to the north of my location, or the tree line to the northeast might block the lights, but the aurora was so intense that it occupied the entire sky. Several shots from that night were actually taken looking south!

Julia Icenogle is an astrophotographer and illustrator based in Seattle, Washington. She started her photographic career with a DSLR, then was using an APS-C size (crop sensor) mirrorless camera before making the switch from another brand to Nikon full-frame cameras with the Z f and Z 7II. After a busy season which took in the spring total solar eclipse, a major solar storm and plenty of expeditions to capture the Milky Way, Julia sat down with us to talk about her approach to astrophotography and what she needs from her camera gear.

Julia explains what first drew her to the art of astrophotography, and why she keeps at it, despite the unique challenges.

I’ve been interested in astronomy and photography since I was a kid, but it took a couple of decades before I realized I could combine the two. My first night photo was taken on a Nikon D5000, and it is an objectively terrible image, but seeing the stars appear on the LCD screen for the first time felt like a kind of magic. That was it—there was no turning back, and that’s what keeps me going.

You have to be pretty enthusiastic about astrophotography to do it, because it can be very challenging. Clouds may drift in at the exact moment the Milky Way is in the perfect alignment. Your focus could be off. An airplane might somehow manage to find its way into every shot, and fatigue from hours of being up all night can lead to dumb user errors. But occasionally you’ll get something amazing.

Julia Icenogle photo of the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse — Z f, NIKKOR Z 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR S + Z Teleconverter TC-1.4X at 560mm focal length, f/8, 1/250 sec, ISO 400. The eclipse in spring this year was pretty much my first time using the Z f. With every hour it seemed less likely that we’d see anything because of cloud cover. When totality started, and the eclipsed sun finally emerged, I frantically got the camera aligned and began shooting at various shutter speeds, getting as many images as I could while staring in awe at the sky. Just a few miles down the road, people didn’t see a thing.

The solar eclipse earlier this year is a good example. Despite years of historical weather data suggesting that Real County, Texas would have a good probability of clear skies, things were not looking great in the days leading up to the eclipse. With the forecast worsening, I considered packing up camp and driving all night to Arkansas, the next nearest spot with a better outlook. In the end I decided to stay put and take my chances. On the morning of the eclipse, a thick cloud cover rolled in as predicted. Following local folklore, we whistled for more wind to clear the sky, which must have worked, because about halfway through totality the eclipsed sun emerged in all its glory!

Julia Icenogle photo of a starry sky over a mountain landscape and its reflection in a lake — Z f, NIKKOR Z 35mm f/1.8 S, f/2, 13 sec., ISO 3200. Lost Lake is a popular spot for astrophotographers. On perfectly windless nights, the lake becomes a mirror for Mt. Hood. This is a single exposure.

Z f for Astrophotography

In addition to the image quality benefits of the Z f’s full-frame sensor compared to my previous APS-C format cameras, the manual dials are very handy for night photography. When you’re looking down at a screen to change exposure settings, you can easily blow out your night vision, so being able to change settings by touch is fantastic. My previous cameras had a similar control layout, so when the Z f was announced, it was a lot easier to contemplate making the switch back to Nikon, and also upgrade to full-frame.

The manual dials are also useful during time-sensitive events like a solar eclipse. You’re watching the most amazing phenomenon and you’ve only got a minute, and you know that if you mess up, it’ll be years until you get another chance. In a situation like that I don’t want to be distracted staring at settings on a little screen for even a second. During the eclipse I wanted to get a variety of exposure times in order to capture prominences and the inner, middle, and outer corona. I was able to do that quickly by touch, just by turning the shutter speed dial a notch or two in either direction.

Julia Icenogle photo of car lights around the bend in the rode, taken in low light with a slow shutter speed — Z f, NIKKOR Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S at 24mm focal length, f/2.8, 117 sec., ISO 640. I’ve met some wonderful friends through astrophotography, and often the camaraderie is the main factor that keeps us motivated to get out to shoot. On a cloudy night, I had an idea for an interesting shot. My friend volunteered to drive up and down this mountain road during a long exposure and had the brilliant idea to open the sunroof with all the interior lights on for an interesting effect.

With so many possible variables that can affect a shoot, Julia spends a lot of time planning her expeditions. How does she approach a typical shoot?

I spend an embarrassingly long time searching satellite views on Google Maps for possible dark sky locations with no light pollution. The topographical maps on the Gaia GPS app help to determine if a mountain or landmark will be blocking the view. I’ll also check to make sure that the area I’m considering will be accessible at night and isn’t on private land. I scout locations during the day if I can, but sometimes I don’t have any option except to show up and hope for the best.

I use the PhotoPills app to check Milky Way core alignment, another app called Astrospheric to check the sky conditions, and yet another called Windy to double check the weather forecast. I also stay alert for notifications about potential Aurora activity and if I get pinged that it’s looking good, I’ll drop everything and go do that instead.

Julia Icenogle photo of Baring Mountain in low light with stars in the sky — Z f, NIKKOR Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S at 14mm focal length, f/2.8, 10 sec., ISO 2500. The summer solstice this year took place just a day before the full moon. I was backpacking in the Wild Sky Wilderness. It never got truly dark that night, so the Milky Way wasn’t visible, but the moon did light up Baring Mountain dramatically, making it worth the effort.

The camera settings required for successful night photography are completely different to other kinds of subjects. With shutter speeds often running into several seconds, high ISO sensitivities and very little light, getting clean, sharp images takes practice. How does Julia approach the challenge?

For the purposes of focus and composition I set my lens aperture wide open, and I usually focus manually on Jupiter or some other bright star or planet about a third of the way into the frame. If there’s still some ambient light, I might turn focus peaking on, which helps. Starlight View mode in the Z f is great for twilight and moonlight, and it’s very useful if I arrive at my location after sunset, when I’m composing shots in near-darkness. I shoot in manual exposure mode with the lens aperture either still wide open or slightly stopped down, and usually start with an ISO setting of between 2000-3200. When it comes to the shutter speed, I let PhotoPills do the math to determine how long of an exposure I can get away with for my camera and specific lens before stars turn from dots to lines. I don’t like looking at the LCD screen if I can help it because it can cast too much light, so I usually turn the LCD off and use the viewfinder, unless the camera is positioned at an awkward angle.

Julia Icenogle photo of Mt Fernow with the Milky Way in the sky overhead — Z 7II, NIKKOR Z 35mm f/1.8 S, exposure for the sky is f/1.8, 6 sec, ISO 2000; exposure for the foreground is f/1.8, 4 sec., ISO 125. This photo was from my new Z 7II’s first backpacking adventure in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. This photo is stacked for focus and exposure. I shot the glacier lilies in the foreground about an hour after sunset, and then waited in the dark for the Milky Way core to align over the mountain.

Back when I was still considering making the switch to full-frame, I borrowed a friend’s Z 7 and did some side-by-side comparisons against my APS-C gear, and it was so much better. When I was shooting on APS-C, I learned a lot of strategies to reduce noise using third-party apps and image stacking and so on, but with the Z f, I’m finding that I don’t need to do any of that. I’ve just been capturing single exposures and adjusting in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. I recently added a Z 7II to my collection as well, which has also been great for low-light photography. For lenses, I’m still building out my Nikon mirrorless kit, but I’ve been extremely impressed by the results I’m getting from the NIKKOR Z 14-28mm f/2.8 S and the NIKKOR Z 35mm f/1.8 S lenses. My dream lens would be a super-telephoto pancake for moon shots which I could take backpacking, but I know that’s impossible!

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.”