Milky Way

Milky way!

Last night was kind of a clear night. And it's been so long since I did some star photography (or astrophotography) so I decided to take my camera out! Set up my tripod, changed settings here and there, and I was so surprised to be able to shoot the Milky Way on my camera! Oh man, it was such a happy moment for me. I didn't know I can do it here in my hometown.

To be honest I've been very skeptical when I see beautiful photos of Milky Way with house/mountains/landmarks in the foreground of the photos. I thought you'll need some powerful camera and a pretty good and clear night to capture it! And also I've never seen the milky way with my own eyes. I did once, in Johor. It wasn't a clear milky way but definitely some strands of it. 

Actually I can see some strands of it in my hometown too. There's this cloud like thing on a certain part of the night sky that I've been eyeing upon. I am not sure if it's the milky way, maybe it's just some mist or clouds heh. So last night I decided to direct my camera in that part of the sky and yup, the above photo is the end result of the shoot! I am quite amazed myself.

It is kind of a crappy photo if you enlarge it. Firstly, the photo was somehow out of focus even though I already set my camera's focus setting to infinity. But somehow it's just a tiny bit out of focus so the stars look pretty vague. I tried to sharpen in in post-process and tweak the brightness and contrast. This is the best way I can salvage this photo. I am determined to take a better photo though!

I've always been fascinated with astronomy. In primary school I took astronomy for that "Young Scientist badge" thingy and after borrowing a pile of books about astronomy, I began to show a deep interest to it. My sister and I even bought a telescope! Err yeah it was those like 78 bucks one but it's pretty good. You can see the craters of the moon. I bought a constellation map as well and tried my best to map out constellations in my hometown. It was pretty fun,

Whenever I look at the stars in the night sky, I'm always amazed by the grandeur and beauty of this universe. I feel really tiny. We all think we are big-shot human beings but seriously, we'll never know who's and what's out there. Are we alone in this universe? I definitely think not. Does anybody else know our existence here? And the questions just go on and on. The universe is so beautifully scary.

After watching Divergent, I wonder to myself if we are actually an experiment carried out by some extraterrestrial civilizations. You know, maybe we are a prototype of a new creature/living thing. Maybe some robot civilizations create us, thinking we might make a great inhabitant of a planet. But I think we are doing a horrible job because we are destroying our planet everyday. 

No one knows really! Just an interesting thought to think about.

Alright stopping here for a while. I'll talk to you soon! :)