"Serenity" Cape Cod Milky Way Pano

jsecordphoto · Apr 10, 2016

Friday night I made the 3 1/2 hour drive to Nauset Beach in Cape Cod to celebrate International Dark Sky Week. While much of Cape Cod has a significant amount of light pollution, many of the beaches along the eastern shore of the Cape have some pretty dark skies. After walking a few miles down the sandy access road that runs behind the beach/dunes, I finally found a spot open enough for a panorama. Because walking in the dunes is a big no-no, I needed to find a spot where the road rose up enough, and the dunes were flat enough, that I could get an unobstructed view.

I've seen and photographed airglow (the green texture in the sky) plenty of times, but never with this much texture, or seen red airglow like this before (outside of photos from places like Chile). It was definitely an amazing night. 10 vertical frames at ISO10,ooo/ f2.8/ 25" with the 15-30 at 15mm.

Watchful · Apr 10, 2016

Nice pic, too bad about the clouds though.

jsecordphoto · Apr 10, 2016

yeah the 1% cloud cover really ruined the photo... :76:

Watchful · Apr 10, 2016

They didn't help it any.

lol

weepete · Apr 11, 2016

Nice shot!

John Hunt · Apr 11, 2016

Wonderful!

goooner · Apr 11, 2016

Amazing shot(s).

Rick50 · Apr 11, 2016

Lovely sky. That ISO 10,000 really brought out the stars.

jsecordphoto · Apr 11, 2016

Thanks everyone!

Rick50 said:
Lovely sky. That ISO 10,000 really brought out the stars.

Thanks Rick! Yeah 10k has been my go-to ISO at night lately. With the D750 the noise in the sky is really quite minimal, and depending on the scene the foreground won't need much noise reduction either.