Photographing the milky way?

What is the best lens for this? I have a Nikon, what lens aperture and all that do I need? I can't afford a lens that is 1000 lol so something somewhat cheap but can get the job done!

Never mind about all that. Here's one someone else did. Saves you a lot of time.

I think any lens can do it. You just have to find a location dark enough to actually see the Milky Way.

Oh wait! We're IN the Milky Way. What you want to photograph is an arm of the Milky Way. Good luck in finding a place in total darkness, away from any light source at all, not even the moon.

It's not the lens that will get you a great shot of the Milky Way, it's the exposure time. What you need is a tracker that will move the camera simultaneous to the movement of the sky so you can keep the lens open for a minute or more to catch all the light. Without that all the stars look like lines. Some newer telescopes come with these to focus on one object as it is crosses the sky.

You have to find a good place with little or no ground light away from metro areas with a clear sky.

You'll want a wide-angle lens with an aperture of at least f/2.8 or wider (e.g. F/1.8). There are plenty of lenses for the Nikon F mount that will do the trick.

You want to get a fast lens to keep the ISO down at or below 3200. At ISO 3200, you'll likely need to be shooting at 30 second exposures. Any longer than 30 seconds, and you'll end up with smudges as opposed to pinpoints for stars. If you go with a tracking head for a tripod, then you can use just about any lens at much lower ISO settings thus getting even better image quality.