Milky Way Rising

[crimbfighter]

I shot this a few days ago, outside St. Germain, WI. It is nice and dark up here in the north woods of Wisconsin. This is a composite of two different exposures, both taken without the camera moving. I set up at about 9:30pm and captured a blue hour image of the foreground. Then at about 10:05pm, I captured the exposure for the sky, after the darkness let the Milky Way become visible. I blended the two together using PS and did the finish processing in PS and LR. Dark skies are incredible, and I could easily see the Milky Way with the naked eye.

Both shot with my Nikon D800, Sigma 14-24 f/2.8 Art lens.

Foreground: 6 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 100
Sky: 20 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 3200

 

[Space Face]

Needs a slight cw rotate but what a sky. Wow.

 

[zombiesniper]

Very nice.

 

[Dean_Gretsch]

Thank you for sharing your technique! Great sight to see.

 

[PJM]

Very nice image. Thanks for the explanation on how you created it.

 

[K9Kirk]

Must be nice. All I can see around here is the yellow light from all the McDonald's.

Awesome shot, good job!

 

[crimbfighter]

Needs a slight cw rotate but what a sky. Wow.

The horizon on this one was tricky. I rotated it back and forth and couldn't ever seem to get the sweet spot that looked totally level...

Very nice.

Thanks!

Thank you for sharing your technique! Great sight to see.

Thanks, happy to share!

 

[crimbfighter]

Very nice image. Thanks for the explanation on how you created it.

Thanks!

Must be nice. All I can see around here is the yellow light from all the McDonald's.

Awesome shot, good job!

Thank you! Light pollution is a problem, for sure, and it sucks that you have to contend with the golden arches... I am lucky that my skies are just dark enough. There are some really talented astro photographers, though, that get amazing images from bright urban areas. The right filters and processing can make all the difference.