Milky Way season is back

It’s Milky Way season again. Which means it’s time to start planning and praying to the clear sky gods for them to do their thing. I’ve gone back to this image from Aug 2023 many times, editing and re-editing it as I learn more about working with these types of images. Each time I get it closer to where I want it. This almost final version of the image is a composite of 8 star images (Canon R6, Sigma 20mm f/1.4 DG HSM shot at f/1.6, 20 sec, 1600 ISO) stacked and aligned using Starry Landscape Stacker with a single image of the approaching train overlaid in Photoshop with a mask to focus the light. Final tweaks in Lightroom. The approaching train light painting the foreground was completely fortuitous, but I know what time and day of the week it passes through (for future reference). New to me this year is a star tracking head for my tripod and camera. Because who doesn’t need more camera gear, right? I got this very lightly used Benro Polaris with Astro head for a...