Utah Astrophotography
Dredging For Airglow
In a pretty remote place of Idaho lies an old dredge, a relic of a bygone era centered around a gold crazed lifestyle and ran by people living in some of the harshest conditions imaginable. It still blows my mind, no matter how many times I tour the dredge, how much effort and personal sacrifice it must have been to get the thing to where it is now. Take into account that it happened almost 80 years ago, with hardly usable roads, in such a crazy environment it's a testament to desire for the shiny stuff in the ground we humans have. This night we were hoping to catch some aurora based on a strong forecast and non-stop alerts for 5 days, we manged some light pillars the night before, but the hills were too tall to get a clear view of the horizon this night. Instead what we got was a ridiculous airglow show with intense bands accenting the northern sky. Look close, can you see the Heart and Soul nebula? Wish I had taken more foreground exposures to the right to include the California Nebula, Pleiades, and Triangulum Galaxy I got in the sky.
4 exposures for this image all shot with a Nikon Z7 and Sigma Art 40mm on a Sky Watcher Star Adventurer Mini tracking mount. Sky exposures are 2 minutes at ISO 800 and f2, foreground exposures are 2 minutes at ISO 1600 and f1.4.
Dredging For Airglow
In a pretty remote place of Idaho lies an old dredge, a relic of a bygone era centered around a gold crazed lifestyle and ran by people living in some of the harshest conditions imaginable. It still blows my mind, no matter how many times I tour the dredge, how much effort and personal sacrifice it must have been to get the thing to where it is now. Take into account that it happened almost 80 years ago, with hardly usable roads, in such a crazy environment it's a testament to desire for the shiny stuff in the ground we humans have. This night we were hoping to catch some aurora based on a strong forecast and non-stop alerts for 5 days, we manged some light pillars the night before, but the hills were too tall to get a clear view of the horizon this night. Instead what we got was a ridiculous airglow show with intense bands accenting the northern sky. Look close, can you see the Heart and Soul nebula? Wish I had taken more foreground exposures to the right to include the California Nebula, Pleiades, and Triangulum Galaxy I got in the sky.
4 exposures for this image all shot with a Nikon Z7 and Sigma Art 40mm on a Sky Watcher Star Adventurer Mini tracking mount. Sky exposures are 2 minutes at ISO 800 and f2, foreground exposures are 2 minutes at ISO 1600 and f1.4.