Standing Watch

I have been posting quite a few partly cloudy nightscapes lately. Let's take the theme a bit further...

 

I was planning to shoot in the Alps or Dolomites during May new moon, but it was not to be, as the weather did not play along. After checking my options, I made a mad dash to southern Italy, where the forecast was a bit better.

 

This image was taken during my first night there. The day saw some thunderstorm activity, but the night should have been clear and I was planning to shoot the Milky Way arch over this medieval watch tower.

 

Unfotunately some unannounced seafog started rolling in while I was setting up. So I had to change plans again and took a time lapse movie and some tracked images.

 

The fog actually was quite thick and moving fast. So I invented a new technique to get my Milky Way image: I blended the clear parts of the sky form different frames of the sequence in order to reveal more of the starry sky than there actually was. I think I'll call this clear sky stacking.

 

EXIF

Canon EOS 6D, astro modified

Samyang 24mm f/1.4

iOptron SkyTracker Pro

Low Level Lighting

Foreground:

5 x 30s @ ISO1600

Sky:

6 x 30s @ ISO1600

Done