starry skies 1 IMG_1855w

gotta question here. See all the stars here? Now, when I increase the

highlights, there seem to show up tons of other stars not seen here,

almost making the sky solid with dots- are these really faint stars

that the camera is picking up? I've done this on another shot at a

different section of sky and the dots are different, so I'm figuring

it isn't camera artifacts.

Thanks. See next comment for pic.

here's the image with enhanced highlights

full size image

I have noticed the same thing shooting the night sky. I am not sure but I think most of the dots are "noise".

Those look like stars to me.  In your full-size image, the faint dots have the same circular, out-of-focus look as the bright stars.  Noise wouldn't look like that.  It would be easy to confirm if you had another shot of this same area (yours or someone else's), and the faint stars appeared in the same places.  Given your exposure time and aperture, it wouldn't be surprising to pick up a lot of very faint stars.

Mark T- thanks- that's what I was wondering, but since they are the same shape and size as the stars and are pretty much random, don't seem like noise .

Mark Z- thanks - my feeling too-  I have a shot of a different section of sky, with the same effect, and when I over lay one on the other, the dots don't line up, indicating to me that it isn't a camera issue. Also, noise I've seen other times isn't usually brown on black, would be just the broken upness of the color. I just think it's amazing that the camera can pick up all those stars and to think if one could see them, the sky would be almost like a mosaic of dots.

G

I would think your lens has a bad "infinite" focus position, specially at light years away.

As for the other "dots" showing up by increasing yoour brightness, you would have the same with film, the information is pickup better than the human eye and can be rendered if desire either from film or digital image.