That viral photo of the Milky Way over the desert felt fake to me

I read a thread in here yesterday where everyone was praising this shot of the Milky Way over some dunes in Arizona. Someone said it was the most natural astro image they'd seen all year. But the stars were way too sharp and the colors looked boosted even for a stacked image. I checked the exif data and the guy used a tracking mount plus a star reduction filter on a full moon night. That's not natural, that's heavy processing. Why do people call that "real" when it's been altered this much?

2 comments

2 Comments

danielmartinez15d ago

So did he admit to the full moon shooting in that thread?

felix_bailey4515d ago

That is exactly what I was thinking when I saw that thread. People just see a pretty picture and call it natural without actually looking at what went into it. A tracking mount plus filters on a full moon night is basically studio work at that point, not astrophotography in a pure sense. It annoys me how much processing gets passed off as "real" just because it looks good on a screen. Thanks for calling this out, it needed to be said.