skypointer2000
Mono Lake Moonset and Milky Way
During my second trip to California this year (lucky me), I was visiting Mono Lake. Of course I could not resist to photograph the South Tufas at night.
On a very cold and windy evening, three days after new moon, I arrived at South Tufa right at sunset. Most people were about to leave when I arrived and soon I was the only soul around. There were quite a few clouds, but my weather app said it would be clearing up soon. So I scouted for a good spot to setup my tripod and waited for the night to fall, the moon to set and the clouds to disappear. The time was used to setup some lights to statically light paint the foreground tufas.
Soon the clouds really parted and I was able to see the milky way visually even though the moon was still above the horizon, but fortunately hidden by a low cloudbank.
So I fired my camera not believing it would yield a usable image, as according to theory it was still way to bright for milky way photography. The result surely proves me wrong. While the core of the milky way is easily visible, the setting moon gives the sky a nice blue hue and the parting clouds seem to mirror the tufas in the sky.
1 x 25s @ ISO 3200 for the sky
5 x 25s @ ISO 3200 stacked for the foreground
5 dark frames subtracted
Mono Lake Moonset and Milky Way
During my second trip to California this year (lucky me), I was visiting Mono Lake. Of course I could not resist to photograph the South Tufas at night.
On a very cold and windy evening, three days after new moon, I arrived at South Tufa right at sunset. Most people were about to leave when I arrived and soon I was the only soul around. There were quite a few clouds, but my weather app said it would be clearing up soon. So I scouted for a good spot to setup my tripod and waited for the night to fall, the moon to set and the clouds to disappear. The time was used to setup some lights to statically light paint the foreground tufas.
Soon the clouds really parted and I was able to see the milky way visually even though the moon was still above the horizon, but fortunately hidden by a low cloudbank.
So I fired my camera not believing it would yield a usable image, as according to theory it was still way to bright for milky way photography. The result surely proves me wrong. While the core of the milky way is easily visible, the setting moon gives the sky a nice blue hue and the parting clouds seem to mirror the tufas in the sky.
1 x 25s @ ISO 3200 for the sky
5 x 25s @ ISO 3200 stacked for the foreground
5 dark frames subtracted