Peak to Peak...C&C

[LittleMike]

Got this last night at the Court of the Patriarchs in Zion N.P.. It's a single 40min 40 sec exposure. My goal with this was to try and make it look like the stars were being shot out of one peak, and captured by the other. It also seems to give me a little of a claustrophobic feel, like I want to cower below the peaks. C&C please!

 

[Frequency]

Amazing!!!

 

[baato]

The shadowing on the rocks looks a little strange...When did you start the exposure ? The shadowing on the rocks is clearly from the Sun...

 

[LittleMike]

The shadows are from moonlight. I opened the shutter at about 10:00 P.M.

 

[Nette]

Waooooooooo!!!!!:thumbup:

 

[baato]

Well, it's one of the strangest pix I've ever seen. One would expect reciprocity failure, resulting in strange colours. However, the colours of the rock and vegetation appear to be daylight balanced.

Also, if the shadowing is caused by moonlight, then where is the Moon ? Above the top of the picture ?

The shadowing does not appear to be consistent with a 40 min exposure of moonlight.

I can't see how that picture could possibly be the result of one exposure at night, ie, after dark.

But I would be happy to be corrected

 

[fokker]

Awesome shot. How were you able to predict the path of the stars before taking the shot?

<--- astronomy noob

 

[LittleMike]

Well, it's one of the strangest pix I've ever seen. One would expect reciprocity failure, resulting in strange colours. However, the colours of the rock and vegetation appear to be daylight balanced.

Also, if the shadowing is caused by moonlight, then where is the Moon ? Above the top of the picture ?

The shadowing does not appear to be consistent with a 40 min exposure of moonlight.

I can't see how that picture could possibly be the result of one exposure at night, ie, after dark.

But I would be happy to be corrected

If you think about it, the light coming from the moon is nothing but bounced light from the sun. The colors will generally come out a little cold, but is easy to correct for. The moon was almost directly behind and left to my location (south-southest). The shadow on the left peak grew as the shot was being taken. I have several other shots that have confused members into thinking it was taken around sunrise/sunset because of shadows, but the moon WILL throw shadows, which the camera will easily pick up when left open for lengthy periods of time. This was just a half-moon, and we had enough light we rarely needed to use flashlights when walking to and from the location. For more examples, check here:

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/photography-beginners-forum/232646-week-3-long-exposure.html
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/photography-beginners-forum/244329-star-trails-zion-n-p-c-c.html
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/photography-beginners-forum/235154-celestial-angels-landing.html

Awesome shot. How were you able to predict the path of the stars before taking the shot?

<--- astronomy noob

Mainly by going off the North Star. Everything will rotate around it, so you can guess pretty closely as to how sharp the curvature will be by how close other stars are to it. And if all else fails, you can always do a 5-minute exposure to check the streaks.

 

[InnatelyKait]

Umm...wow. Very nice.

 

[480sparky]

The reason the shadow doesn't 'look' right is because the moon is also moving across the sky. So in part of the scene, it was always in the shadow, in other parts it was always in moonlight, and for the fuzzy area in between it was in the shadow part of the time and in the moonlight for the rest of the time.

From the exif data:
Exposure Time (1 / Shutter Speed) = 2440/1 second ===> 2440 second
Lens F-Number / F-Stop = 63/10 ===> ƒ/6.3
Exposure Program = (null)
ISO Speed Ratings = 100

2440 / 60 = 40 minutes and 40 seconds. In that amount of time, the moon will have moved the same amount of arcing the stars did. Or, roughly across 5.56% of it's path across the sky from east to west.

 

[baato]

I'm impressed with your photographic and astronomical knowledge, 480sparky, and it's maybe true that the shadowing is in the right places, but I still think it's a montage. You haven't covered reciprocity failure in your admirably painstaken explanantion. And correct me if I'm wrong, and forgive me for being a bit picky, but isn't approximately 1.2 degrees of arc substantially less than 5.56% of its path across the evening sky ?

 

[480sparky]

I'm impressed with your photographic and astronomical knowledge, 480sparky, and it's maybe true that the shadowing is in the right places, but I still think it's a montage. You haven't covered reciprocity failure in your admirably painstaken explanantion. And correct me if I'm wrong, and forgive me for being a bit picky, but isn't approximately 1.2 degrees of arc substantially less than 5.56% of its path across the evening sky ?

Isn't 1.2 arc-degrees how far the moon travels along it's orbit in relation to Right Ascension in that 40.6667 minutes?

 

[480sparky]

One can even spot a couple familiar landmarks if you just look.

 

[baato]

Hahaha, 480, your knowledge way exceeds mine, and of course, I overlooked the exif data DOH ! If there is exif data, then presumably it is of course OOC - apolgies to all, especially Little Mike and 480sparky.

I don't know about the right ascension, but the Moon would definitely have travelled a little over a degree, because the Moon (and Sun) apparently "move" across the sky 1 degree of arc in just under 4 minutes.

I'm sorry for casting aspersions on the picture, I just thought it looked like a montage of two shots. Sorry for being a doubting thomas. I didn't doubt that the sky shot was real, indeed, it looks as one would expect for approx 40 minutes exposure. But the juxtaposition of the rocks ? Hahaha, that was too much for my tiny little brain.

 

[480sparky]

...................I don't know about the right ascension, but the Moon would definitely have travelled a little over a degree, because the Moon (and Sun) apparently "move" across the sky 1 degree of arc in just under 4 minutes............

Just to muddy the water further, the sun moves across the sky 'faster' than the moon does. Yes, both appear to travel east to west due to the rotation of the Earth on it's axis, but the moon also appears to move slower because of it's west-to-east movement along it's orbit. Plus, although the apparent movement of the sun across the sky is affected by the earth's rotation around it, for the purposes of the OPs image, it's mathematically insignificant.