For this shot I used my first digital camera. The Nikon D5300 with the 18-55mm kit lens. For taking austro shots you want to use the widest angle lens you’ve got, so you can capture as much of the sky as possible!
The Nikon D5300 I used is a crop sensor camera. This means that the lens, the 18-55mm, is not really 18 mm wide. It would have been on a full frame camera, but because It was on a cropped sensor you have to multiply it by 1.5. So infact it was (18 x 1.5) 27 mm wide. This is still pretty wide but because I wanted a wider shot, I took a couple of images and stitched them together in post. I will tell you how I editted this shot in another blogpost.
I also used a manfrotto tripod to keep my camera steady.
The apps I used to find the right time and location are Skyview and Sun position demo. Both apps are free. The Skyview app I use to locate the milky way. With the app you can easily pinpoint the core of the milky way, the best part. The sun position demo app I use to see when the astronomical twilight starts. On this app I can also see the position and phase of the moon. It it critical to pick the darkest night possible. So, pick a night around the time of the new moon.