[Editor's Note] Starry sky photography is the most difficult photography. In the complex creative process, many starry sky photographers have accumulated rich experience, and each has some tips, collectively known as "Star Masters".
Star Alliance CSVA specially formed a secret production team for this purpose, and nine volunteers were on duty to collect and organize everyone's practical skills. They organized sharing and discussions on the member group every day, and summarized the essence every week, and released them on this official account.
What I have released today is the 19th issue of the [Star Master] result of the 19th issue:
★Secret Book Sharer: No. 107 He Guanglei
★Secret Book Shared by He Guanglei
★Experience sharing in Xinjiang to shoot stars
. Space planning: It is not easy to shoot the starry sky in Xinjiang. Xinjiang is vast, and the distance between cities is far away. Any place to go is 100 kilometers or even hundreds of kilometers. Therefore, you must plan your itinerary in advance to avoid missing the opportunity. If you are a self-driving star, you must plan the amount of fuel. When you fill up the gas station in advance, there are no gas stations in many mountains. If it is a autumn and winter season, it also involves the problem of car heating at night, so you must ensure sufficient fuel. You must use your ID card to refuel at a gas station in Xinjiang and you need to comply with local regulations. Most gas stations usually close around 12:00-1:00 in the summer and open around 7 a.m. The next day, and the door may close earlier in winter, so you need to pay attention to this.
. Time plan: There is a time difference between Xinjiang and the mainland. Taking the summer shooting of the stars as an example, it is basically after 10 pm at night. This also requires planning in advance on the mobile software. Here we recommend the WeChat mini program "Starring" and the software "Qiao Photography Professional Edition". With the help of these software, you can complete the shooting plan more calmly. The temperature difference between morning and evening in Xinjiang in summer is large, especially in high-altitude areas. For example, the Hashlegendaban in the northern section of the Duku Highway in is about 3,000m above sea level. If you want to shoot the starry sky there, it is not an exaggeration to wear down jackets in summer, so you can at least bring a set of autumn and winter clothes.
. Respect customs: needs no need to say more, please respect the customs and habits of ethnic minorities.
. Tourist peak season: Xinjiang's economy is mainly agriculture, animal husbandry and tourism. It is the peak season for summer from mid-June to early August every year. At this time, you must be mentally prepared in advance. Air tickets, accommodation, car rental, and meals are expensive in all aspects, and ticketing is tight. The flow of people is large, which affects the experience to a large extent. However, summer is also one of the most beautiful seasons in Xinjiang, a place to escape the summer heat. This requires everyone to consider it themselves.
. Strict policies: Xinjiang may be strict in some regulations due to many reasons. Many friends who come here for the first time may feel that they cannot adapt. I hope everyone can understand that we locals are used to it. If you have plans to travel to Xinjiang or take pictures of stars, you can also contact the sharer if you have any questions.

★Secret Book Sharer: No. 112 Senly.He
★High Reverse Experience Sharing in High Altitude Areas
1. High Altitude Generally, there will be obvious reactions after 6-8 hours to high altitude areas. Therefore, our itinerary planning is to adapt to the environment on the first day. If you have weak physical fitness at night, you will have headaches. For this situation, it is recommended that you drink more water and drink more sugar-rich drinks such as Coke and Sprite. It is recommended to carry equipment to measure blood oxygen with you and observe the blood oxygen condition at any time. It is normal for blood oxygen in high altitude areas to be around 80. If you have a headache, you can take ibuprofen . The so-called headache powder in Tibetan areas cannot be bought in pharmacies.
2. It is recommended not to take a shower on the first night. If you have to take a shower, it is recommended not to wash your hair to prevent a cold.
3. Do not exercise vigorously in high altitude areas. Talking loudly is appropriate, and walking slowly.
4. After the first day, everyone is familiar with the environment, and it is more acceptable to go to a little altitude. In general, I hope everyone can travel safely. In summary, it is: step-by-step adaptation to the altitude, do not take a bath and wash your hair, drink more water, drink more Coke, and walk slowly
5. The blood oxygen meter can be purchased at a pharmacy, and it can be found for two or three hundred yuan, and you can even take medical insurance.
★Secret Book Sharer: No. 113 Zhang Zhibo
★Shaped sky shooting and post-process experience sharing
Sharers have loved the starry sky above their heads since childhood. The stars in the sky make people full of yearning. The dream since childhood will one day be able to engage in astronomy-related industries. At the end of 2017, the sharer finally realized his dream - establishing a remote observatory. That’s right, I started with starry sky photography from deep space, and Hoshino photography is completely self-taught. I even found that when I was processing Hoshino photos, the processing software for deep space photos can also process Hoshino photos.
1, early
In terms of equipment, the equipment I generally use is Nikon D610 astronomical modification and Sony A7M2 and A7S1 astronomical modification. The lens likes to use Sigma 35/1.4 and Sigma 20/1.4. One shot of the film and the other shot of the single shot.
To be honest, I rarely run for the shooting venues for starry sky photography. I usually take pictures from level 1 to level 4. However, I finally found that the shooting venues for Hoshino photography are not the darker the better. In my limited understanding, Hoshino photography should be a combination of the landscape and the starry sky to show the beauty of the earth and the universe. Therefore, appropriate light illuminates the landscape without affecting the sky part is the best shooting location and shooting time.
This photo was taken 1 hour before the moon sets. Nikon D610 modified + Sigma 35/1.4 lens, 19 splicing

The author's shooting method is basically the same as everyone. Starting from the landscape, the overlap of each photo is about 30%. Generally, pressing the shutter directly with your hand will cause the camera to shake. Many people should have suffered this loss, so it is best to use the shutter cable to take a shot.
2. The photos taken after
are imported into LR filtering. The author usually takes several sets of photos, one wrong one, so this group is completely useless. The author believes that recording the starry sky should pay attention to "this time and this scene" and should not "transfer flowers and wood". What should be there should not be painted, and what does not have can't be painted, so the photos of other groups will basically not be filled with. After filtering, splice, crop and export each group of photos to get a spliced original picture.

Next, the author will use a software that specializes in processing astronomical images, called pixlnsight. Pixlnsight is a very powerful astronomical photo editing software, and it is also the culprit that makes me eventually move towards saturation warriors....
photos are imported to do color balance (Hoshino photos are sometimes not very accurate, but it doesn't matter) - preliminary stretching - After making a star point mask, the star shrinks (it will enlarge the photo defects, such as photos with joint marks will be more obvious) - Contrast and saturation stretching (formally become saturation warriors).




In fact, pixlnsight has many functions that can be used for photos of different quality. The better the quality, the more you can make it.

export the photo and import it into LR. If the background is not corrected correctly, you can use LR to make corrections once, and then adjust the exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, black and white steps, texture, clarity, and noise reduction to get a satisfactory photo.
In fact, everyone's aesthetics are different. Some like heavy mouths, while others like light mouths. The later stage of starry sky photography is a tedious process. Maybe when you feel unsatisfied at any step, you will start over again. For the sharer, he clearly likes to speak lightly, but the final picture is to speak heavily. Personally, I think that as long as the photos that do not "addition to the snake" or "steal the sky and change the sun" are all good photos, seeking truth is the essence of starry sky photography. It shows the beauty that nature should have and the beauty that the universe should have. We just make the colors that it should have become more gorgeous.
The universe is mysterious and also gorgeous. People are eager to understand this world. The starry sky above our heads lead us humans from chaos to civilization, develop science, and explore the only truth in this world.
★Secret Book Sharer: No. 117 Liu Junqiang
★Two methods of thick to polar axis
1, laser pen set thick to polar axis
0, Viagra Polarie second-generation equatorial instrument comes with polar axis mirror set, consisting of set 1 (Figure 1) thick to polar axis and set 2 (Figure 2). Because the night set 1 is inconvenient to watch stargazing, I thought of the abandoned Indian Ohoshino’s laser pen set (Figure 3). After comparison, it was found that the Inda Hoshino laser pen set can be installed on the two eyepieces of the Weixin Equatorial Pole-axis Mirror Set. See Figure 4 for details. In this way, the thick-to-pole axis can be completed within 1 minute using the combination of laser pen set and set 2. The key to this equipment is that the dedicated conversion interface of the laser pen set (available on Taobao) can be matched with the eyepiece of the polar mirror set 2. Of course, you can also hold a laser pen, but you should ensure that the axis of the laser pen is consistent with the polar mirror eyepiece.


Figure 3 Laser pen set is installed on the polar mirror set 2 eyepieces
2, Nikon DF-M1 SLR micro single spot viewfinder coarse to polar axis
Nikon DF-M1 SLR micro single spot viewfinder (Figure 5) can be roughly against polar axis. The operation process is relatively simple. According to the instructions, the viewfinder is installed on the hot shoe . Move the lens to ensure that the light spots in the viewfinder are aligned with the Polaris .

Figure 4 Nikon DF-M1 SLR micro single light spot viewfinder
★Secret sharer: No. 118 Wang Tianwei
★Hoshino photography accessories are practical and cost-saving
Regarding photography accessories, share some practical and cost-saving solutions:
. Cheap fake battery solution

Take Nikon camera as an example, buy a 12Vdc output polymer battery, and then buy a 12V to 8.4V step-down cable and a Nikon EN-EL15 fake battery to provide sufficient battery life for camera time-lapse photography. The battery cost is about 90 yuan for 7000mAh. The buck cable + fake battery is about 100 yuan.

.CFE card DIY guide
Buy a CFE card tray for 99 yuan. Buy a 2230 specification 512G size solid-state drive , which costs about 300 yuan and assemble it together. Nikon model is recommended to purchase Western Digital SN530 solid-state drive, with good compatibility. Z9 can use SN740 1T solid-state and can perform 8K 30P recording. Currently, due to the price reduction of solid-state drives, the cost after DIY is even lower than that of ordinary SD cards.




★Secret Book Sharinger: No. 114 Liu Bolin
★Starry Sky

under different portel levels can be checked on the professional version of the QQIYU. To shoot Galaxy , you must first stay away from the city and stay away from light damage. Let me show you how the starry sky photographed by different Porter levels looks like.
Porter Level 1: The Galaxy is clearly visible

Porter Level 2:

Porter Level 3: (Although there is light pollution, the Galaxy is still visible)

Porter Level 4:

Porter Level 5: (The Galaxy has basically disappeared)

Porter Level 5 needs to be taken with extremely professional equipment and later filming of the Galaxy.
But we can still use the camera to take pictures of star tracks

(Bottle Level 8)
★Secret Book Sharer: No. 121 Wu Yutong
★Trained molar pattern later in the star track
1. After the later stacking of the star track is completed, sometimes the molar pattern shown in the figure below will appear. Generally, the reason for this situation is that when processing a single photo in the early stage, lens correction is used in ACR. After the lens correction is turned off, the molar pattern will disappear when stacking.


This is the star track that was stacked after the lens correction is turned off. You can see that the molar pattern has disappeared.
2. Sometimes molar patterns will appear without lens correction. This situation may be caused by the excessive contrast between the bright and dark parts of the picture. When processing a single photo in the early stage, you can try to appropriately reduce the contrast of the picture and reduce the contrast of the picture, and then stack it, and the molar patterns will disappear. How about

? Will this issue help you? If so, please like and forward it to let more star friends see it.Please also move your finger and select the most practical secrets you think in this issue:
. At the same time, more star friends are welcome to share your "Star Mastery secrets". You can send the text and pictures to your dedicated email address [email protected]. The editor will select the best (if you need illustrations, please provide the accompanying pictures together). secrets include shooting planning, equipment use, on-site matters, post-production techniques, outdoor strategies and other content. Although it may not be a unique hidden weapon, please do not be too popular.
If there are no holidays and other special circumstances, the "Star Mastery" column will be released at 9 pm every Monday. Please follow the official account quickly, move the small stool, and secretly learn the "Star Mastery Tips".
Planning: Star Alliance Secret Production Team
On duty this week: Ali
Coordination: Li Jia
Editor: Zhang Nan
—————/END/ —————
“Star Alliance CSVA” was also good at the past