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A bright night in the desert

From a high ridge on Sevenmile Mesa near Fisher Towers in Utah, the Milky Way seemed to balance on a sandstone spire. The view straight up was fairly clear, but strands of smoke were already apparent on the horizon. The plan was to use this ridge for shots of the Perseid Meteor Shower the following nights, but the sky was choked with smoke by dawn (my two previous posts), so I packed up to seek clearer air in the mountains of Colorado.

 

Mars is the bright light to the left of the Milky Way, Saturn appears as if it were in the Milky Way (between a light and dark portion of the galaxy) and Pluto is between them. The meteor trail just above the horizon on the left is unrelated to the Perseid Meteor shower--just good fortune. Thirteen photos were stacked with Starry Landscape Stacker, and the composite was then joined with a long exposure photo of the landscape and the meteor trail using layer masks in Photoshop.

 

As the intervalometer accumulated the star shots a pack of coyotes serenaded me.

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Uploaded on August 17, 2018
Taken on August 10, 2018