The First Light

© Daniyaal.Ash

Everyone starts somewhere. This was mine. Not a test. Not a lucky snap. But a deliberate, hard-earned attempt at the night sky.

This was me facing the dark, trying to pull something real out of it — and making every decision count.

Gear Used

• Camera: Sony A7 III (Full-frame)

• Lens: Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art

• Filter: K&F Concept 8K UHD Light Pollution Filter

• Mount: Solid photography tripod, no tracking

• Location: Light-polluted zone

• No guiding. No stacking. Just one honest exposure.

Settings That Worked — But Weren’t Easy

13s | f/5.6 | ISO 1600 | RAW (.ARW)

It took a while to get here.Because the truth is: every setting pulls on another — like a balancing act on a scale.

The Exposure Time: 13 Seconds

This was my first limit.

At 35mm on a full-frame sensor, anything over ~15 seconds starts trailing — and I saw that for myself. I tried 5s, 8s, 10s. All clean, but too dark. Then I pushed to 15s, even 20s — and the stars started drifting. Little lines instead of pinpoints.

Eventually I found 13 seconds to be the sweet spot. Just enough time to let in faint stars and structure, but still short enough to keep the stars sharp without tracking.

That number became my anchor — everything else had to pivot around it.

The Aperture: f/5.6

This was the hardest lesson.

At f/1.4, I thought I’d won. The sensor drank in the light — but the stars weren’t right.The centre was okay, but the edges? Warped. Coma. Aberrations. Like tiny birds, flaring outward. f/2.8 cleaned up a little. f/4, better. But it wasn’t until f/5.6 that the whole frame snapped into clarity.

It was tempting to shoot wider — more light, lower ISO — but the image wasn’t clean enough. So I made the trade: close the aperture, lose light, gain precision. f/5.6 gave me tack-sharp stars across the whole field — no compromises.

But that decision came with a cost.

ISO: 1600

Stopping down the aperture meant I was letting in less light. And without tracking, I couldn’t extend my shutter.So, to make up for it, I had to raise the ISO — carefully.

Too low, and the image would be underexposed. Too high, and the noise would swamp everything. ISO 1600 was where I landed after trial and error. Not too noisy, not too dim — just enough to balance the other compromises.

Every choice — aperture, exposure, ISO — leaned on the others.Every change demanded a reaction.And every reaction brought me closer to balance.

The Shot

Foreground left in deliberately — the edge of the car I stood beside while I captured this. A reminder that this wasn’t taken from an observatory or a mountain ridge. Just a grounded, urban edge — and a person looking up.

It’s not the darkest sky. Not the most ideal spot. But I worked with what I had, and pulled what I could.

Why It Matters

This was an experience — where I understood every decision I made, and why. I wasn’t just clicking buttons and hoping. I was measuring, balancing, testing.

I went through every aperture.I pushed exposures until I saw trails.I tested ISO values to the limit.I didn’t settle for good enough — I waited for right.

No stacking. No post-blending. Just one frame, carefully built.

Wrestling the Stars in Bortle 9

This entire image was captured under Bortle 9 skies — about as far from a dark site as you can get. For those unfamiliar, the Bortle Scale is a 9-level system used to measure the brightness of the night sky caused by light pollution. A Bortle 1 sky is what you might find atop remote mountains or desert plains — inky black, with the Milky Way arcing overhead in brilliant detail. A Bortle 9 sky, on the other hand, is deep within the urban glow — where only the Moon, a few planets, and perhaps the brightest stars can pierce through the haze. It’s the astrophotographer’s crucible.

Capturing anything under such conditions requires more than just a decent camera — it requires an understanding of how to bend light to your will. It’s a delicate negotiation between exposure time, aperture, ISO, and the ever-present wash of artificial light. In my case, this shot became an exercise in balance. I experimented with wide apertures to let more light in, only to find they softened the stars near the edges. I stopped down to f/5.6 — sacrificing brightness for clarity — then raised my ISO and pushed the exposure out to 13 seconds to compensate. Like a scale, every adjustment affected another — brighter isn’t always better if sharpness falls apart, and low noise means nothing if the signal is smothered.

To help fight the skyglow, I used a K&F Concept Natural Night light pollution filter, which selectively blocks the wavelengths emitted by common artificial lighting, giving me just enough contrast to recover finer detail in the sky. It didn’t eliminate the glow, of course — no filter can perform miracles — but it gave the image some breathing room. Enough to remind me that even under the orange dome of a city, the stars haven’t left us. They’re still up there, waiting for us to try.

Where I’m Headed

This isn’t a passing phase. This is the start of something serious.

I’m building a deep-sky rig from the ground up — step by step. Next will be a dedicated mount, then guiding, then a widefield astrograph. Eventually mosaics. Gigapixel projects. Dome projections. But I refuse to rush it.

Right now, I’m learning to extract everything from what I have — because every future upgrade will mean more when I know the limits I’ve already pushed.

And this photo? It’s the first block laid on that foundation.

An image I earned, not through gear, but through patience, trial, and actual understanding.

—

To anyone out there starting under light-polluted skies, without a tracker, or wondering if your lens is “good enough” — let this be your sign. You can begin with what you have. You can find clarity in the mess. And you can pull the stars into your hands — if you're willing to work for it.

This was mine.

The first light.

The first real one.

And it won’t be the last.

— Daniyaal.Ash