Winter Bounty

My first post of the year is one of the most challanging panoramas I shot so far. It is my first tracked panorama shot at 70mm focal length and was captured in one of my favorite places, at the Tschuggen Observatory in Arosa, Switzerland. Despite the rather narrow final field of view, it consists of 18 panels for the foreground and 4 panels for the sky.

 

Capturing the set of exposures in freezing-25°C was quite an ordeal for me and my equipment. Eyeballing the overlap and moving the camera on my frozen up ballhead and with my numb fingers proved almost impossible and these equipment problems made my buy a good panorama head a few weeks later…

 

Processing the panorama proved to be tough on my computer as well. The photoshop file of the 200 megapixel panorama has whopping 31GB, but the resolution and detail I recorded in the sky is amazing.

 

The Orion, Runnning Man, Flame and Horsehead nebulas are beautifully resolved and the hydrogen alpha nebulosities in the region are standing out nicely: Barnards Loop, the Meissa Region, the Rosette Nebula, the Seagull Nebula and the Christmas Tree Cluster are really popping.

 

Prints available: ralf-rohner.pixels.com

 

EXIF

Canon EOS 6D astro modified

Canon EF 24-70mm f/28 L

iOptron SkyTracker Pro

Low Level Lighting

Sky

4 panels, each a stack of 9 x 60s @ISO1600, tracked

Foreground

18 panels of 60s @ISO1600

Done