The Heavens Above

I have been to False Kiva 4 times in the past year with every intention of doing a shot similar to this at night. I ran into 2 problems:

1) I did not have a lens wide enough for this. This scene was shot as a single row pano with my UWA. I shoot crop and my widest lens at 10 mm is still not wide enough to cover this scene in a single shot which would make photographing the Milky Way more difficult.

 

2) I own a star tracker to get exceptional Milky Way shots and wanted no less for this shot. However, those trackers need to be aligned with Polaris which is hidden once inside this location. It is probably possible to align the tracker without this star visible but I lack the expertise to do this with any degree of accuracy.

 

I am generally against compositing images but due to the limitations above I had no other options that would yield similar results. Interestingly it took me months before I finally around to creating this, but alas, it is finally done!

 

Foreground: False Kiva, Canyonlands

Milky Way: Shot outside of Grand Junction, CO

 

Taylorfrantaphotography.com

facebook.com/taylorfrantaphotography

Done