How to Photograph the Milky Way in 2026: Guide, Settings & Tips

Photographing the Milky Way in 2026: Camera settings, calculating exposure time, visibility, best spots, focus & editing – explained step by step.

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I have been photographing the Milky Way for more than ten years. In this big photography tutorial on Milky Way photography you get a simple, step-by-step guide to photographing the Milky Way. Alongside the right camera settings, you also get lens tips and learn how to edit your Milky Way photos. There is also a calculator for the best exposure time and a planner. I hope you enjoy reading it and trying it out!

I get it if you don’t feel like reading endlessly long astrophotography tutorials. Even so, I recommend reading the whole article, because it will teach you how to take even better photos of the Milky Way and get more out of my “basic recipe for Milky Way photography”. Here you’ll learn how to choose the right moment for these shots and I’ll pass on a good amount of Milky Way photography know-how to you. And completely free of charge. Why do I do this? Well, the Milky Way and astronomy have fascinated me since my childhood more than 30 years ago. Today I look back on hundreds of hours spent with my camera under the Milky Way. The fascination has stayed, and I want to help other stargazers take better photos of the Milky Way.

In Brief: The Most Important Settings for Great Milky Way Photos

Photograph the Milky Way on a clear, moonless night in the darkest location you can find. Use a fast (ultra-)wide-angle lens at its widest aperture, high ISO and around 10 to 25 seconds of exposure.

• Camera: DSLR or mirrorless with manual controls
• Lens: wide-angle 14-35mm (full frame) or 10-16mm (APS-C)
• Aperture: f/2.8 or faster (ideally f/1.4-f/2.0)
• ISO: 1600-6400 (3200 as a guide)
• Exposure time: 10-25s using the 500-rule / NPF rule
• Focus: manual, via Live View on a bright star
• Format: RAW – the look is created in editing
• Stability: a sturdy tripod + remote release or 2-second timer
• Timing: new moon, galactic centre visible (Feb-Oct)
• Location: low light pollution, Bortle 1-4

Useful Tools for Milky Way Photography

Right at the start I’m giving you a few handy calculators that make photographing the Milky Way easier and help you plan your trips under the night sky.

Can You Photograph the Milky Way Tonight?

How much is the moon spoiling your Milky Way photos? Is there a window for good shots? Find out quickly with my moon planner for Milky Way photos:

Exposure Time Calculator

Quickly work out the ideal exposure time for your camera and lens combination here:

How to Best Find and Photograph the Milky Way Today

First you have to find the Milky Way before you can photograph it. Simple astronomy apps help here, and you can plan your shoot with them too. At our latitudes you’ll find the Milky Way in summer roughly towards the south to west. In winter you’ll find the Milky Way in the west to north.

The bright centre of the Milky Way (in the constellation Sagittarius) is only visible from Germany for part of the year, and always low in the south. The table shows month by month whether and when a shot is worthwhile – for central Germany (about 50° N), with times in local time including daylight saving. Always shoot on a moonless night around new moon.

Month	Core visible?	Best window (local time)	Direction	Altitude in window*	New moon 2026 (approx.)	Rating
January	Practically no – the core only rises at dawn	–	Southeast (horizon)	< 3°	Jan 18	not practical
February	Very marginal, just before dawn low in the southeast	approx. 05:45-06:30	Southeast	3-6°	Feb 17	only for the patient
March	Yes – start of the season, in the hours before sunrise	approx. 04:30-05:45	Southeast	5-9°	March 19	limited
April	Yes – the core climbs, longer window before dawn	approx. 03:00-05:00	Southeast → South	8-11°	April 17	good
May	Yes – good window in the second half of the night	approx. 01:30-04:00	Southeast → South	9-12°	May 16	good (from mid-May no astronomical night in the north)
June	Core well placed, but no astronomical darkness across large parts of Germany	approx. 00:30-02:30	South	10-12°	June 15	twilight sky only (the Alps are better)
July	Yes – the core culminates in the south at its highest point of the year; astronomical night returns from about July 20-25	approx. 23:30-02:00	South	11-13°	July 14	very good (from the last third of July)
August	Yes – the best month in practice: full darkness, pleasant times, Perseids around Aug 12	approx. 21:30-00:30	South → Southwest	10-12°	Aug 12	very good
September	Yes – good early-evening window right after twilight, the core sinks steadily	approx. 20:30-22:30	Southwest	6-9°	Sept 11	good (start/middle of the month)
October	Only in early October shortly after dark, low in the southwest – then the season ends	approx. 19:30-20:30 (first week only)	Southwest (horizon)	3-6°	Oct 10	end of season
November	No – the core is in the sky during the day	–	–	–	Nov 9	not visible
December	No – the core is in the sky during the day	–	–	–	Dec 9	not visible

* Altitude of the galactic centre above the horizon during the given window, for about 50° N. From Germany the core never climbs much higher than around 13°, so a clear view to the south is essential. Times are guide values including daylight saving and shift by up to ~1 hour depending on location and date. New moon dates are approximate – for precise planning use PhotoPills, Stellarium or my calculator.

You’ll only see the Milky Way with your own eyes if you’re in an area free of light pollution and your eyes have already adjusted to the dark for half an hour. The longer your eyes can adapt to the darkness, the better. Only then will you see the faint band of the Milky Way with your own eyes! By the way, this process is called adaptation, and it’s fascinating what happens in the eye!

For your night-time photo tour under the stars I recommend bringing a star map so you can find your way around. The star map can happily be a digital app on your smartphone. That way you’ll find stars and the Milky Way faster and have more fun photographing the night sky. If you want to use a star-map app for astrophotography, I recommend switching on night mode on your phone so the blue display doesn’t disturb your eyes’ adaptation.

Good Star-Map Apps

There are quite a few good star-map apps in the Android and iOS app stores. For astrophotography I especially recommend these three apps:

• Photopills: With this app you can plan your Milky Way shot down to the second at any location. On site you can even overlay the Milky Way in VR mode to see where it will be at a given time. I use this app a lot, and it’s also one of the best planning apps for landscape photographers.

• Stellarium Plus: A real-time star map with a huge catalogue of stars and deep-sky objects, and the Milky Way too. That makes it great for planning astrophotography.

• Star Walk 2: Star Walk is an alternative to Stellarium and sends you a notification for special astronomy events. Here too you can locate the Milky Way very quickly.

Even though these three star-map apps cost a few euros, I really do recommend them. They let you find out in an instant whether the Milky Way will fall within your desired frame. Stellarium is also available as free software for Windows, OS X and Linux, and as an online app. Stellarium is perfect for planning astrophotos or a photo trip to the Milky Way!

There are also plenty of free star-map apps. Unfortunately they’re often very limited in features and plastered with ads. So rather spend the few euros on a proper star-map app. That way you also support the developers’ good work.

The Right Camera Gear for Photographing the Milky Way

In Milky Way photography, good camera gear matters if you want truly impressive results. Let me quickly show you a few photos I was able to take with very good gear here in Germany. And that despite heavy light pollution:

I shot all of these Milky Way photos with a fast 20mm lens on a full-frame camera.

To get started in Milky Way photography, though, all you really need besides the camera is a good, sturdy tripod and a wide-angle lens. For truly good shots, it pays to invest in a modern full-frame camera and a very fast wide-angle lens.

So that this article doesn’t turn too much into a camera-and-lens roundup, I’ve split it up. If you want to learn more about the best cameras or lenses for Milky Way photography, take a look at the relevant articles:

• Cameras for the Milky Way and stars: the best DSLRs & mirrorless cameras for astrophotography
• Lenses for the Milky Way: the best astrophotography lenses for DSLRs & mirrorless cameras

If you’re wondering which camera is particularly well suited to Milky Way photography, take a look at my detailed article on “the best cameras for Milky Way photos“.

Tripods

Always use a sturdy tripod and steer clear of all the cheap junk online. By sturdy I mean a tripod that carries the load without any trouble and also dampens a gust of wind.

Ideally the tripod should also be easy for you to set up and operate in complete darkness. Unfortunately the tripod market is full of junk, and many beginners make the mistake of buying an extremely cheap tripod that’s no good. Tripods under €75 you can completely forget for the mirrorless or DSLR + fast lens combination. If you still don’t want to spend several hundred euros right away on a decent tripod for night-sky photos, take a look at the following tripods. These tripods are perfect for Milky Way photos:

Neewer 168cm Carbon Tripod

Remote Release / Camera Apps

To avoid vibrations from pressing the shutter, you should always trigger the camera externally. A remote release is useful but not strictly necessary (except for BULB exposures with a DSLR). After all, pretty much every modern camera can now be triggered via an app.

Tip: If you use a remote release, give it a fixed place in your camera bag or tie the pouch to the tripod. On more than one trip under the stars I have left the remote release in the camera cabinet and been annoyed about it on location.

Bonus tip: There is often an app that lets you remote-control the camera too, which helps enormously in Milky Way photography because you can also check image sharpness very precisely. With Canon that is Camera Connect, for example. Keep in mind, though, that the Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection to the camera reduces battery life.

Also important: For your trip under the Milky Way you should always pack a small LED torch or head torch. Ideally it glows red or is covered with red film so it does not disturb your dark adaptation. The lamp helps a lot when setting up your gear.

Camera Settings for the Milky Way

The result of these settings is a Milky Way photo in which the faint band of our home galaxy is already clearly visible. Your photo gets especially exciting when you don’t just photograph the Milky Way but also include an interesting foreground.

You’ll quickly notice: photographing the night sky is technically demanding but huge fun. Milky Way photos are always impressive, because your camera shows you details of the Milky Way that aren’t visible to the naked human eye at all. The higher the quality of your gear, the easier it becomes to photograph the Milky Way in more detail and more beautifully.

Find a spot with an interesting foreground and plan your photo so the Milky Way sits exactly where you want it. Drive to your photo spot in good time and allow time for setting up the tripod and camera and, above all, for manual focusing.

In the following points I explain in detail why the camera settings mentioned above are essential for Milky Way photos.

Camera Mode

For star and Milky Way photography you basically shoot in manual or BULB mode (for BULB, though, you absolutely need a remote release or control the camera via an app). Why manual? The camera is in a difficult lighting situation and you need full control over the exposure, because the surroundings are too dark for the (semi-)automatic modes.

Aperture

Stars are essentially point light sources that radiate their light in all directions. Because of the vast distances, though, the light hits the camera sensor in parallel. A larger aperture opening therefore lets a greater amount of light fall on the sensor in the same time than a small aperture opening does.

So shoot as wide open as you possibly can (small f-number). I recommend an aperture of at least f/2.8. Ideally a fast lens at f/2.0 or even f/1.4. The wide aperture makes sure you capture as much light as possible. Believe me, you want to catch every single photon with the sensor that the stars of the Milky Way have emitted.

Image Stabiliser

You should switch off any image stabiliser (IS, VC, VR, etc.) on the lens or in the camera. On a tripod an image stabiliser can be counterproductive. There’s really no movement you need to compensate for anyway.

Focusing on the Stars of the Milky Way Correctly

To get the stars perfectly sharp, you absolutely have to focus manually and switch off autofocus. Autofocus won’t help you in the dark and the camera will struggle to focus on anything. So you simply do it yourself.

The hardest part is actually focusing to infinity. Some lenses have the infinity mark ( ∞ ) printed on the focus ring, which makes things much easier – at least roughly. Because if you want to focus the stars perfectly, you won’t get around fine-tuning.

My tips for getting perfect sharpness

1. Find a particularly bright star in the night sky (Vega in summer, Sirius in winter) or a bright planet such as Jupiter
2. Point the camera and lens at this bright star
3. Ideally the bright star should be right in the centre of the viewfinder, because sharpness is easiest to judge there
4. Activate Live View on the display
5. Zoom into Live View to maximum magnification
6. Now bring the star into perfect focus step by step with fine adjustments on the focus ring
7. You’ve nailed the focus when the star appears as an exact point and as small as possible
8. You can magnify your camera display even further by bringing a small loupe and holding it in front of the display.

Almost all mirrorless cameras support so-called focus peaking, which makes manual focusing much easier.

Another helper: alternatively you can focus to infinity during the day and mark the focus position clearly on the lens. Of course this only works with lenses whose focus ring doesn’t turn infinitely. But watch out – if there are big temperature changes over the course of the day, it won’t work.

Always take a test shot after focusing! Zoom all the way into the image and check sharpness only in the centre of the frame. Nothing is more annoying than discovering after a 3-hour session that all the images are slightly out of focus! Also bear in mind that with big temperature changes over the night you’ll occasionally have to refocus. The best way is to check regularly that the stars are still sharp!

ISO

Don’t be afraid of high ISO values. Below ISO 1600 the photos just turn out unspectacular.

For star and Milky Way photography the ISO value should be between 1600 and 6400, depending on the camera’s noise behaviour and the subject you want. The lens’s available speed and the light pollution on location are decisive here. In principle you should push the sensor’s sensitivity as far as it will go, but without making the image completely noisy.

On modern APS-C cameras from Sony, Nikon and Canon, ISO 3200 is still easily usable. After all, for a little more noise you get twice as much light. As a rule I’d always rather come home with a noisy image than none at all.

Milky Way Photography: The Right Exposure Time

When photographing stars, the exposure time depends on the subject you want and the focal length.

Because the Earth rotates, beyond certain exposure times you get star trails and the Milky Way goes soft. If you photograph the Milky Way and choose too long an exposure time for your lens, the Milky Way will very quickly look washed out and blurry. That’s because, depending on the focal length, there are fixed limits at which the Earth’s rotation becomes visible. As a general rule, the following applies to exposure time in astrophotography without a tracker:

• The wider your lens, the longer you can photograph the night sky.
• The closer your framing points towards the North Star, the longer you can expose without getting visible star trails.
• If you photograph stars at the height of the horizon, you should keep your shutter speed a little shorter.

If your chosen combination of exposure time and aperture isn’t enough to capture faint structures like the Milky Way clearly and sharply, you can first compensate with higher ISO values. Or you use an even faster lens to photograph the Milky Way.

A final option for exposing longer is the star tracker mentioned above, which compensates for the Earth’s rotation. Once you realise you really enjoy photographing the Milky Way, a star tracker like this is a genuinely worthwhile purchase. Besides the comparatively affordable tracker, the Omegon LX Mini Track, there are also professional versions that track even very heavy and large cameras effortlessly and extremely precisely:

Omegon Mini Track LX2

Calculating the Maximum Exposure Time

Luckily the Earth rotates at a constant speed, and you can easily work out the maximum exposure time with my calculator:

Exposure Time: the 500-Rule, 300-Rule and NPF Rule

Because the Earth rotates, the stars drift across your sensor. Expose for too long and points turn into little streaks. How long you can expose depends above all on the focal length and, on closer inspection, also on your camera’s pixel size. Three rules of thumb help you here.

The 500-Rule

Maximum exposure time = 500 ÷ (crop factor × focal length)

Example: 20 mm on full frame gives 500 ÷ 20 = 25 seconds.

The rule dates back to the film era. On a phone display or on Instagram the stars look like points with it. Modern, high-resolution sensors, though, already show slight streaks at 100% view.

The 300-Rule

Maximum exposure time = 300 ÷ (crop factor × focal length)

Example: 20 mm on full frame gives 300 ÷ 20 = 15 seconds.

This is the stricter variant for today’s cameras. It’s a good compromise when you want a safe value quickly on location without doing any maths.

The NPF Rule: the Most Accurate Method

The NPF rule is the only one that takes the aperture (N), the pixel pitch (P) and the focal length (F) into account.

The simplified formula is:
Maximum exposure time = (35 × aperture + 30 × pixel pitch in µm) ÷ focal length. Here you use the real focal length, without the crop factor. The crop factor is already accounted for in the formula via the pixel pitch. To find your pixel pitch, calculate: sensor width in mm ÷ pixels across the width × 1000.

The higher the resolution, the shorter you have to expose if the stars are to stay point-like even at full magnification.
The simplified formula assumes the celestial equator, i.e. the worst case. If you shoot towards the North Star, you can expose longer. With the core of the Milky Way you only have a small buffer.

More Settings

File Format

Ideally you photograph the Milky Way exclusively in the RAW format.

Why RAW and not JPG? When we photograph stars and the Milky Way, we want to capture as much detail as possible and will most likely edit the images digitally afterwards. Every image saved as a JPG is a compressed image with only 8-bit colour information left. On top of that, compression always loses image detail. Rather take the 14-bit RAW files and believe me, editing a Milky Way photo in the RAW format will give you quite a bit of extra detail.

White Balance

The white balance doesn’t matter at first, as long as you photograph the Milky Way in the RAW format. In editing you can change the white balance afterwards anyway, so there’s no need to worry about it. But as a guide you can keep values of 3700 to 4000 Kelvin in mind, depending on the light pollution.

Custom Camera Functions

If you want to photograph the Milky Way with a DSLR, I recommend switching on mirror lock-up. On a DSLR the mirror flips up when you press the shutter so that light falls on the sensor.

This small movement creates a vibration that (especially on very cheap tripods) causes oscillations for several seconds. That can introduce motion blur into the photo. Mirrorless cameras have a small advantage in Milky Way photography, because there’s one less setting to make and there’s no mirror slap.

Milky Way Photography: Planning and Preparation

First let me share an important lesson from many years in astrophotography: plan your night-time trip under the stars and bring enough time. Don’t just head out aimlessly and snap away – that will quickly leave you thoroughly disappointed with your Milky Way results. Think beforehand about how you want to photograph the Milky Way and where you’ll take the photos.

Clothing & Supplies

Dress warmly – not just in winter, going by the motto: “better to sweat than to freeze!”. Photographing stars is no fun at all when your fingers are frozen or your toes turn blue. Quite apart from the fact that operating the camera then takes for ever. And you don’t want to catch a cold either! Warm, sturdy shoes and gloves, warm clothes and a flask of tea are never a bad idea! The body cools down incredibly fast when you’re not moving.

Also check your camera battery again, make sure your lenses have no dirt on the (rear) element, and that there’s a memory card with enough space in the camera. And whatever you do, don’t forget the tripod plate! That’s happened to me a few times and it’s seriously annoying.

Weather & Surroundings

Avoiding Light Pollution

Your big enemy in Milky Way photography is: light pollution. Light pollution is nothing other than unwanted or excessive illumination from artificial light sources, which becomes especially visible at night. This phenomenon occurs above all in urban areas, where countless streetlights, building lighting, billboards and other light sources turn night into day. These light sources are still clearly visible on the horizon even when you’re no longer in an urban area.

So if you want to photograph the Milky Way, find the darkest possible spot far away from cities. There you’ll have less light pollution, which otherwise outshines many stars.

By the way, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the Bavarian Alps offer the best conditions in Germany for escaping light pollution and taking impressive Milky Way shots. For a quick location search, use this interactive and up-to-date map of very dark locations. Of course there’s also an overview map of light pollution as a free app for Android

To photograph as many stars and the finest structures of the Milky Way as possible, you absolutely need a clear, cloudless sky. Clouds not only block the view of the stars, they also reflect a lot of ambient light. That amplifies the light pollution further and the fine details of the Milky Way are quickly outshone.

The Best Locations for Photographing the Milky Way

And where can you see and photograph the Milky Way particularly well? On a trip to a dark-sky park! It’s worth it, because there’s extremely little light pollution there. Of course there are also places in Germany with hardly any light pollution where the Milky Way is especially easy to see. These locations in Germany are particularly recommended:

• Eifel National Park – well worth seeing during the day too, by the way! Unfortunately a few wind turbines are now visible.
• Rhön Biosphere Reserve
• Winklmoos-Alm Dark-Sky Park
• Westhavelland
• Palatinate Forest
• The Alps
• The Harz

The Bortle Scale: How Dark Your Sky Needs to Be

How dark a location really is is described by the Bortle scale. The American amateur astronomer John E. Bortle published it in 2001. It ranges from class 1 (perfectly dark sky) to class 9 (inner city). Many light-pollution maps also show the SQM value, the measured sky brightness in mag/arcsec². The rule here: the higher the SQM value, the darker the sky.

Bortle	Sky	SQM (approx.)	Milky Way with the naked eye	For Milky Way photos
1	Excellent dark	> 21.9	Almost casts shadows, zodiacal light clearly visible	Dream conditions
2	Typically dark	21.5-21.9	Highly structured, dark clouds clearly visible	Excellent
3	Rural	21.3-21.5	Still detailed, slight light domes on the horizon	Very good
4	Rural/suburban	20.4-21.3	Clearly visible but low contrast, light domes in several directions	Good, with editing
5	Suburban	19.1-20.4	Only faint, gone at the horizon	Limited, stacking helps
6	Bright suburban sky	18.0-19.1	At best faintly guessable at the zenith	Hardly worthwhile
7-9	City to inner city	< 18.0	Not visible	Not suitable

What does that mean for you in practice?

• You’ll barely find Bortle 1 in Germany. The darkest regions such as Westhavelland, the Rhön, the Eifel or parts of the Alps mostly sit in the Bortle 2-3 range.
• From Bortle 4 downwards the trip is worth it. At Bortle 5 you can still get the Milky Way onto the sensor, but you have to put much more effort into editing and stacking.
• Pay attention to the compass direction, not just the number. For us the core of the Milky Way always sits low in the south. If there’s a city to the south of your location, its light dome can interfere exactly there, even if your spot is rated Bortle 3 on the map.
• The map is only a guide. The moon, haze, humidity and snow reflecting light make the same spot one or two classes brighter on some nights.

Avoiding the Moon

Besides light pollution, your second-biggest enemy in Milky Way photography is the moon. The full moon in particular outshines the night sky so strongly that no meaningful Milky Way shots are possible. So ideally you photograph at new moon or when the moon is low below the horizon. Apps like Stellarium, various moon calendars or my free calculator help you here.

As a beginner you should only photograph the Milky Way when it’s new moon or the moon is below the horizon, because otherwise hardly anything of the Milky Way is visible. Most of the time the photos are even overexposed and unusable. Once you’ve gained some experience, as a practised Milky Way photographer you can also create shots where the moonlight lights up the landscape. But that’s only possible with a lot of planning, because the moon must sit just barely on the horizon. For shots like that you have a mere 10 minutes.

Editing Milky Way Photos in Lightroom

Once your Milky Way photos are in the can, it’s time for editing. I want to show you a few simple steps to give your photos more “pop”.

1. Start by adjusting the colour temperature and white balance. An optimal value when shooting is 3700 – 4000 K, but in editing it may differ depending on the colour mood. Values between 2700 and 4000 Kelvin are normal here – depending on the ambient light.
2. Raise the exposure so that you don’t get any blown-out areas in the histogram.
3. As a rule I reduce the contrast and add a little texture.
4. Whites – I raise these to a maximum of 50 to make the stars even more visible
5. Increase vibrance -> this brings out the coloured parts of the Milky Way even better
6. Photos with higher ISO are always desaturated – so increase the saturation slightly.
7. To make the stars clearer, carefully raise the highlights while lowering the shadows and blacks.
8. Use the “Dehaze” function sparingly, up to about 15, to bring out the stars a little.
9. HSL sliders – if you want to boost or soften certain individual colours, this function is ideal. I always shift aqua towards blue
10. Tone curve – create a high-contrast curve with a slight S shape to increase the contrast further
11. Adjustment brush – with the brush you can wonderfully strengthen selected areas by boosting contrast and also tweak the white balance of the Milky Way itself a little. That makes the Milky Way “pop” even more clearly!

Keep in mind: editing is very individual in Milky Way photography – and even though I’ve found my settings and always work in a similar way, that doesn’t mean it applies to your image style too. Just play around a bit in Lightroom and save your settings as a preset.

Don’t fancy endless editing? No problem! Here you’ll find the presets I use for my Milky Way photos in Lightroom: To the Milky Way preset pack

The following gallery shows you what you can get out of your Milky Way photos with editing:

Better Milky Way Photos with Stacking

Stacking is a brilliant technique in astrophotography for minimising image noise. Several long exposures of the same subject are combined to reduce noise, emphasise detail and significantly improve the quality of the image. Stacking several shots also improves brightness and colour, giving you a more impressive and appealing image of the Milky Way. To successfully combine or “stack” exposures, all the photos have to be identical, which is no problem if you work according to my guide and shoot in manual mode.

A simple method is to take the exposures at set intervals, similar to a time-lapse. Many cameras have a built-in function for this; if not, there are dedicated releases or an app for every camera system. I always recommend stacking at least 5 to 10 photos – though this enormously increases the time you have to spend on your photos.

If you use a Windows PC, you can try the free Sequator software, which is very, very powerful and also free. Mac users need to set aside a few euros in the App Store for Starry Landscape Stacker.

Frequently Asked Questions about Milky Way Photography

Your Milky Way Photos and Experiences

Now I’m curious whether you’ve already photographed the Milky Way and how it turned out. Did you find it hard to take pictures of stars and the Milky Way? Just use the comment function below the post! I always love comments, suggestions and pictures!