Tutorial: How to shoot astro panoramas - Charles Brooks

Charles Brooks is a true expert at astro panoramas. He runs Opus Expeditions in New Zealand, taking adventurous photographers to the most breathtaking locations around the country. He has mastered the art of Astro and in this filmmaking guide, he shares all of his best-kept secrets about how to shoot a multi-row panoramic Astro image.
Anyone can take a good photo of the stars, but not everyone can get that mind-blowing effect that you’re about to learn.
In this video, Charles walks you through the process of taking amazing Astro panoramas. This is a very in-depth tutorial that goes from the gear he uses and location-scouting right through to post-production.
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Gear we used:
Manfrotto Genie Mini II - amzn.to/3P4JG0B
Manfrotto 190X Tripod - amzn.to/3YMwMb6
Panasonic Lumix S1 - amzn.to/45BIC9V
Pan Tilt Bracket - amzn.to/3P4JG0B
50mm Lumix SPro f 1.4 - amzn.to/3YGf2y1
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Watch the full video or read the article below for some important highlights of this production.
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[@CRAIGSCHULER]

The gold standard of 'How to' tutorials. Thank you!

[@owenwilliams9582]

Thanks Charles for making this vid, many thanks from Anglesey N.Wales

[@wrobi2267]

Definitely one of the best tutorials I watched on KZbin yet. And definitely the first video where the title and the description match the content. Clearly explained steps from the start to the end. I can give one like only but it is worth much much more. The result is amazing and very impressive. Thank you so much Charles! My hat's off to your work.

[@AstroRoad]

Easily one of the clearest, complete and enjoyable panorama tutorials I've watched. Loved finding the kiwi in the core too!

[@clancyrobertsFoC]

possibly the best photography tutorial I have ever seen

[@SyrpLab]

Thanks Clancy! We appreciate it!

[@karriaga71]

Amazing tutorial !

[@Nate_The_Great69]

Killer tutorial!

[@JulienRoyPhotography]

Very complete tutorial, thank you!

[@gustavocontreras1685]

Very good Tutorial, Thanks for the helpful info!!!

[@nightscapeimages.richard]

Awesome video Charles .. .well done. Richard

[@livedeliciously]

Thank you for this video! Astro-panos basically combine everything I love about photography into one area. I'm still learning, but I can't wait to try.

[@lordofming]

Finally a complete tutorial !!!! Been waiting for one for years.

[@jberganzo]

Amazing tutorial. The best one I have seen so far. I love the PTGui part of it. Very informative. Amazing pictures by the way!

[@NormalDayRussia]

One thing you learn early on with astrophotography is that it's a consuming hobby, and it requires quite a bit of special gear and knowledge. Anytime you can find gear that can serve you both under normal shooting conditions AND for astrophotography - that's a win. Which is precisely why I've been really happy with the versatility my setup has gained with the addition of two of Syrp's Genie Mini II. I keep finding new use-cases for them, which is awesome) so thanks for the tutorial :)

[@chilodaone]

Amazing video, thank you so much for having taken the time to show us everything involved in those nice pics you find online. And this helped me understand that one single super expensive ultra wide angle at F1.4 won't be enough! There is more that can be done with different equipment 👍👍

[@Stone1108]

What a fantastic informative video, thanks so much.

[@chrisdeverill9857]

Awesome for newbies! Very smooth! Learned a lot!

[@EY8MM]

Very good tutorial. Thank you!

[@amacmedia3221]

Brilliant tutorial, really enjoyed that

[@amrmokadem3826]

Yo just wanted to let you know that I really got inspired by your videos and I learned so much from it to the point I even started my own KZbin channel thanks for the inspiration ❤️❤️

[@kalef1234]

WOW....I will be referring to this a LOT. Just got a Genie mini +Genie mini II and the Genie 1st gen linear and a slider. I feel ill be using the minis for a lot of astro panos and the PT GUI tutorial is so valuable. Thank you!

[@AstroRoof]

fantastic tutorial

[@fvaron]

Very well done!

[@csimet]

Great tutorial and very close to my process... you provided a few post process tips that will help me. Tx! This is definitely one of the best end-to-end tutorials out there. I've been a huge fan of PTGui for many years. I'm trialing the new Benro Polaris as my auto-capture pano head and finding it very useful for wide field work like this.

[@b_ks]

Fascinating, thanks.

[@spirithealershamanism]

This! This is the video to watch.

[@swimfast1234]

Clear and concise. Thanks for a great video.

[@SyrpLab]

Glad you enjoyed it :)

[@kbruff2010]

Very good presentation

[@billzou3699]

The BEST one

[@Dickymint1000]

Just found this video. It's absolutely great instruction on a how to. Many thanks

[@SyrpLab]

Glad it was helpful!

[@regnismada4936]

amazing info. great to watch. thank you

[@SyrpLab]

Glad it was helpful!

[@marieta.s]

Very interesting and useful tutorial. My photoshop skills are not good so i’ve learnt a lot. If only we were not on lockdown with curfew hours. I’ve been wanting to shoot a milky way panorama for a very long time!

[@johnkeating3891]

Fantastic explanation of your approach

[@SyrpLab]

Glad you enjoyed it John!

[@neilllewellyn8338]

Superb video 👍👍

[@hybridnz]

A great tutorial. Thank you 🙏

[@SyrpLab]

Glad you found it useful!

[@alandyer910]

Good tutorial, but keep in mind his advice on when in the year to shoot the Milky Way applies to the Southern Hemisphere, sort of! For the Northern it’s April to June that lacks an evening Milky Way. December and January are fine as that’s when Orion and the rich winter Milky Way is up. But like most photographers Charles is equating the “Milky Way” to just the galactic centre in Sagittarius. It’s more than that. There are good photo opportunities in the northern winter/southern summer months.

[@charlesbrooksphotography1378]

Alan Dyer good points!

[@hutchy5150]

Well done Charles. Thank you for taking time to produce the video and share you techniques.

[@joshmorgan3750]

Cheers Charles. Gave me abit of insight into photoshop, that program scares the shit outta me so I haven’t really ventured much into it. It maybe now I’ll give it another crack for my future panorama’s. The new genie mini’s are dam awesome 👍

[@charlesbrooks]

Thanks Josh! I'm not sure anyone completely understands photoshop.... every filter, every setting, it's a behemoth. But I say just jump in there. As long as you leave that original layer untouched you can't go wrong!

[@blueman841]

The is fantastic, thanks for posting. lots of info for a "newbe" have you got a video, or are you planning one for how to do a time-lapse of the milky way with the gene mini?

[@moderntimes4814]

Great enjoyed

[@paultaylorphotography9499]

Outstanding tutorial Charles. Sadly it demonstrates how much of a lazy ass-tro I am. I don't shoot astro too often and when I do it's single image efforts. I like the results, nowhere near as much as your work, but for my needs quick n easy n lazy works....for now. Liked and subbed mate awesome video.

[@andrewmusselwhite9458]

Just found your channel very informative thank you. Will sub and watch your other video later

[@dr.lopuckdds2603]

Extremely good presentation. Where do you go on the app for overlap settings

[@Sanjmaghera]

Brilliant overview. How do you connect the Ginie mini to your Panasonic lumix?

[@davyp93]

Fantastic video, I'm very surprised I'd never heard of the genie before. Do you know if anyone has used the genie in combination with a star tracker for tracked panoramas

[@fouuladvand48]

Nice Video. The best so far. What I miss and I don't understand is: How do you deal with the hot pixel noise? You didn't stack any images but still got out so much detail and no noise right?

[@graemechow88]

Yeah, your editing more simple that I can follow more easier. The genie you used also can use for the timelapse panning video beside photo panorama?

[@rodneytopor1846]

Very interesting, thanks. For planning panoramic shoots, is there a preferred maximum elevation of the Milky Way over say a flattish landscape for best artistic effect? And, do you have advice for someone wishing to make such panoramas, possibly with a wider lens, but without the expense of the auto pan tilt equipment you used?

[@carlreid4161]

Your video came up in my KZbin feed probably from the competition you asked me to vote for. I think this is one of the most comprehensive tutorials out there. Have you done a video on nodal points? I hadn’t heard the term until recently probably explains why so many of my attempts at shooting panos have failed!

[@charlesbrooks]

The idea that Nodal Points cause panoramas to fail is a common misconception. They really only come into play when shooting tight interiors where parallax can be an issue (like architecture or real-estate photography). The most common reason for panos to fail to stitch is simply using the wrong software. Photoshop and Lightroom just aren't built to match up star fields. They'll work on very wide images, but once you're at 35mm or longer they tend to fail. Try running some of your old panos through either ptGUI or Hugin. They might prompt you to add some control points manually, but once you get the hang of that it's a pretty simple process. I've never had a panorama fail except where I've made a critical shooting error like leaving gaps between images or rows.

[@carlreid4161]

@@charlesbrooks thanks for such a thorough reply Charles. I don’t use PS LR to stitch as I don’t like the subscription model I use MSICE. I will take a look at ptGUI though so thanks for the suggestion as my last pano there was a little duplication near the SMC! But so far so good nobody has bagged my post 😉,

[@Seegurkenwombat]

Wow awesome, thanks so much for that tutorial!! Which cable do I use to connect the Genie Mini to my S1 camera? There are so many....

[@SyrpLab]

Heyo! You can find the cable chart here: support.syrp.co.nz/hc/en-us/articles/115000730594-Choosing-the-Correct-Link-Cable-for-your-Camera

[@Grahamwarrellow1]

Brilliant tutorial Charles! Thanks so much for sharing. PT Gui looks like a real pro panorama stacking programme and wondered if you’ve tried Starry Landscape Stacker which seems to get excellent reviews. Do you ever generate flats to get round the vignetting issue?. Thanks again! Graham

[@charlesbrooks]

PT gui is for stitching, not stacking, very different techniques for different kinds of images! Both great programs. I don't bother with flats - I find in my panoramas that the exposure=>optimise tab in ptGUI always does a great job of removing banding caused by vignetting.

[@ianwilliamsphotography2864]

Hi Charles, thanks for your tutorial, you mention stacking which i would want to do. When programming the Sryp pan tilt bracket to do the pano, can you ask it to say take 6 images of the same frame in the sequence before it moves to the next part of the panorama?

[@charlesbrooks]

Yes you can! You can also use this feature in conjunction with bracketing modes in-camera to make HDR timelapses.

[@michaelgordon6071]

Wonderful tutorial. Have you tried multiple images at each position and stacking to further reduce noise? The workflow for processing might be daunting.

[@SyrpLab]

Thanks Michael! Pretty sure Charles mentioned to us he does this sometimes but we didnt have the space to include it in the video. Maybe something for a future Guide To?

[@KenToney]

Can you tell me which version of PTGUI you are using, looks different than mine. Best tutorial like this I’ve found BTW

[@charlesbrooksphotography1378]

Ken Toney thankyou! I’m using the pro version. There was a big update that dramatically changed the UI about 6 months ago, so if you update you’d might look similar. I believe the basic version can do everything in the tutorial except for the masking.

[@KenToney]

Charles Brooks Photography did it tonight, thanks. I have recently switched to Sony and don’t have the 50mm yet but do have the Batis 25 f2, would that work ok with pano (I have all Syrp equip like you used). I also have 16-35, 24-70 and shoot MW with Laowa 15mm. I want to try the pano though, thanks.

[@timhughes4259]

Thank you, Charles, super helpful. A quick question, please. Are there any parallax issues using the Genie II pan-tilt vs the Genie Mini II pan-tilt kit for this type of work? i.e. nothing close in the foreground.

[@charlesbrooks]

None at all - the only time I've had issues was where I had a fence running through the scene and put my camera right on top of it - but even with that, a few manual control points and careful masking fixed it.

[@strawberry4450]

Amazing tutorial. The one thing I wanted more detail on was the "2 genie mini ii" setup. Why would you need 2 and how did you set it up?

[@SyrpLab]

Hey Strawberry! You require two GMIIs if you want 2 axes of movement (enabling you to get a larger panorama), but you could use the same techniques with only one. We have a bunch of videos about the Genie Mini II and set ups like this on our channel. Check out this tutorial here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iX-TmGd9pdNsg68&ab_channel=Syrp

[@reddrinker]

Hi Charles, great tutorial. Just a quick question about PT Gui, do you need to have the PTGui Pro License to do the things you do in the tutorial?

[@charlesbrooks]

I believe masking isn't possible in the free version, and I'm not sure about control points either. For me both of these are vital. If you're finding ptGUI pro too expensive have a look at Hugin - it's free, open source, and can do everything. It's just quite a bit slower and the UI is a little tricky to figure out!

[@cameraman2157]

What is the best month to see the Milky Way arched across the horizon or is location the key to seeing this ?

[@dzungvu4090]

Hi Charles, thank you for your helpful tutor, I have Genie Mini 2 pano set like yours, and last Milky Way season I used them for the first time ever, they are awesome, however I ran into some issues with stitches in Photoshop. I cannot seem to stitch them in PS sometimes, and light-and-dark band between two images, I don't know how to fix it in Photoshop. Would you mind sharing the extra settings (Move Shoot Delay), Interval, Wait Time setting. Thanks

[@charlesbrooksphotography1378]

Dzung Vu Hi Dzung. This is why I recommend using a seperate stitching program, not photoshop. In the tutorial I use PtGUI which I consider the best, but there is a free alternative called HUGIN that you might also want to try. Do your stitching in those then take the image back into photoshop afterwards.

[@akkarparkiamopas3401]

If I buy PTgui, the basic one. Not a Pro version. Is it good enough for astro pano?

[@EnriqueAviles]

Wow! that was a great tutorial. Also wondering abut the spec of his computer. Managing a over 7 gigabytes size file while screen recording with barely any hassle. Most impressive

[@charlesbrooks]

Hola Enrique. I can't remember the specs of the rig that we filmed the video on, but at home I use a Threadripper build with a Vega 64. PtGUI uses the video card for stitching and previews so is always blazing fast regardless of the file size. For photoshop I reserve a couple of cores just for the screen-grab software which works well.

[@EnriqueAviles]

@@charlesbrooks looking smooth. Once again, great tutorial

[@simontorr4317]

Great videos thanks. I’ve been this but my second hard genie won’t operate to my selected shutter speed or in long exposure/hdr option in pano. I’ve read some others have the same problem. Any suggestions please

[@SyrpLab]

Hi Simon, please contact [e-mail] so we can look into it. Thanks

[@MrAhipon]

Any reason not to use Lightroom photo merge option instead of PTGUI?

[@Wychfyre_]

lol, when you turned the vibrance and saturation up, and said it looked "awful", i thought it looked amazing! Im a bit of a sucker for oversaturation though. I've taken a few Astro images from Piha. What are some great locations near Auckland without going too far away that you like?

[@charlesbrooks]

Muriwai obviously! In Feb the east coast is good, so look for Duder Regional Park, Waitawa is great. Lots of people shoot at Pakiri although I haven't yet. A little later around March Hunua Falls gets good, although it's challenging with exceptionally dark foregrounds and waterfall spray. Then from June it's off to the west coast. Anything over the Waitakeres is good. I avoid beaches to the south as there's little buffer between them and Auckland's light pollution. Be extremely careful on surf beaches at night...

[@SGcreator75]

great video, I have a doubt with the two genie mini heads and the adapter, no problems with the Nodal point?

[@SyrpLab]

Some centering is possible in both horizontal and vertical orientation using the bracket for nodal point adjustment, but it is not 100% flexible in that way. For most panoramas, like the one shown in this tutorial, nodal point adjustment is not necessary.

[@charlesbrooks]

Hola Santiago. For wide landscapes like this I find the nodal point never becomes an issue. It's only for tight interiors such as architecture photography that you get parallax issues, but with ptGui you can usually resolve them easily.

[@JuniorExtrime]

What temperature should I use?

[@Dan-yy7lk]

Hi Charles, fantastic video! Quick question, i was looking to get a star tracker for sharp long exposures over 30 seconds, does the Genie mini 2 tools have a function for matching the earths rotation automatically ? Im guessing for just a few minutes with a super wide angles lens, you would get away with manually setup it you face polaris (im in New Zealnd) and then working out the earths rotation speed? It would be awesome if this was one of the pre-defines you could choose from built in with he auto pano options. I know you probably couldn't use it for super long exposures with a long lens, but it would be neat to be able to get a 2 minutes exposure just using the genie 2 mini that are sharp. Or even better, a multi shot panorama of the stars, with the earths rotation worked into the mix, so you could take 2 minute exposures of each shot in the pano, which means you could shoot at much lower iso's or shoot at sharper fstops. The only downside i would see would be forground elements would be slightly blurred, but that's the case with all star trackers, most photographers would just take a seperate static shot of the forground elements and composite it back in.

[@charlesbrooks]

Syrp doesn't officially offer this (yet!). But I have seen people do it, and I'm keen to try it myself. There is an italian guy who made a lazer-pointer attachment for alignment. He's taken shots at up to 4 minutes at 70mm which is astounding. Check out facebook.com/EnricoRighettiVideophotography

[@timhughes4259]

@@charlesbrooks Where do I upvote for this feature :)

[@robmaupome]

Would this work with a star tracker?

[@TarunPrasadKottary]

I have been meaning to try this exact setup on tracking mount . Do you happen to try this out? My target is to complete arc in about 2 hours with 50-85mm

[@charlesbrooks]

I haven't done it yet - but would be really keen to see your results!

[@akkarparkiamopas3401]

Can PTgui can fix the horizontal line step when the it is not really levelled ? I could see a step in the photo. Cheers

[@highrestours699]

Yes there are a couple of ways - you can either level it manually by dragging the panorama around in the viewer, or you can add 'horizontal control points' in ptgui which will ensure it's perfectly straight. It was just one step too many for this tutorial.

[@akkarparkiamopas3401]

Could we command the Genie to start the new row from the left only? Not Zigzag . Cheers

[@SyrpLab]

Hey Akkarpark. The Genie Panorama mode always shoots in a zig-zag formation however you can select which corner to start from

[@MatthewSaville]

Haha, you lost me at "I have almost as much fun in post-production as I do in the field" ;-) :-P Joking aside, it was initially implied that stacking for noise reduction was possible, but now I'm seeing just single frames. I assume the Genie app can indeed shoot multiple shots per frame?

[@SyrpLab]

You're correct! We used a single shot in this video for simplicity but the Genie is capable of triggering multiple shots - just set the app to HDR mode and enable bracketing on your camera.

[@charlesbrooks]

You can stack for noise reduction in a pano grid as well. You'll need to set your camera to continuous burst mode, then set the genie trigger time to however long you need (ie: if you want 4 1 second photos, you'd set the trigger to about 3.5 seconds, and the interval to about 4.5 seconds). Just make sure you don't do this too early or late in the night. Stacked panoramas take a long time to shoot and if the overall light changes too much you'll run into trouble when processing.

[@MatthewSaville]

@@charlesbrooks That's great to know, thanks everybody! I'll be giving this a shot with the Genie II Pan-Tilt tonight, actually.

[@charlesbrooks]

@@MatthewSaville Full mood tonight, so you might struggle to get star definition - but you'll have some stunning moon-lit foreground to work with!

[@eriklundqvist4221]

Are the sliders out of stock worldwide? Trying to find a dealer in London which has the short pro in stock.

[@SyrpLab]

Hi, according to what I see there should be stock of the short track but the End Caps and carriage are out of stock in the UK. Assuming you are looking for the whole kit not just the track for using as an extension?? You can email me for more info if you like [e-mail] - thanks

[@eriklundqvist4221]

@@SyrpLab I managed to order from Wex and ProductionGear everything I needed. Going CF instead of PRO though :) Thanks!

[@ollietaylorastrophotography]

Been really struggling to get my genies to fire the S1 and S1R without it automatically making the camera fire as video, I spoke to Alex at Syrp about this a while back, also to Lumix, nobody seemed to be able to help, if you can hook me up with info from Charles, would be much appreciated.

[@charlesbrooks]

Hi Ollie. It sounds like you might have the wrong cable! Lumix have that special 4-pole jack which causes the video to fire if voltage is applied to the wrong section. Feel free to message me privately about this and let's try to sort it out. facebook.com/charlesbrooksphotographer

[@MrBorderman01]

@@charlesbrooks Yep.Can confirm this. I was having the same issue until it was pointed out to me that the cable needed has to have 3 rings at the end of the connector. So the 2.5mm cable has to be P6 or L1 if Im not mistaken.

[@SyrpLab]

@@charlesbrooks thanks for sharing your experience! 🙌

[@alexzhang9318]

Still don't understand why the Milky Way shows as an arch in the final image.

[@zemekiel]

For the extreme price Syrp asks for this setup, it should at least offer star tracking capabilities.

[@charlesbrooks]

You can actually do star tracking on a single Syrp Mini - you just need to point it to the Celestial Poll, set it to video mode, and have it turn 15 degrees per hour.

[@carlaperson]

@@charlesbrooks Thanks Charles. I just figured out that I can use a cell phone bracket attached to the Genie screw and then use PS Align Pro and the compass at tru north to get a rough style alignment Just need to get the cell phone bracket absolutely square and locked into position. Probably could put a laser pointer on that rig too. Nice for a second camera star tracker, or a super light weight one for the field. The star adventurer is heavy to carry.

[@mafketeltje1988]

So funny to here the difference in approch between this tutorial and Eric Benedict: take extra steps down vs use lowest number... prefer Eric's tutorials based on star tracking providing much more depth of colour

[@charlesbrooks]

You can actually combine the two techniques by mounting the Syrp on a star tracker. But it requires shooting two separate panoramas, one for the foreground and one for the stars.