skypointer2000
Late Summer Drama
During the last days of August, I was able to tick one more spot off my bucket list: The Chruezberg is a prominent row of sharp rising peaks on the eastern edge of the Alpstein Mountains. Is forms a towering cliff high above the Rhine valley and looks absolutely breathtaking when viewed from a ridge north a small pass named Saxer Luecke (Saxer Gap).
The densely populated Rhine Valley produces strong light pollution, but luckily, the sky is still dark enough to allow Milky Way photography and the artificial light from below nicely illuminates the foreground.
In late summer, the position of the Milky Way at nightfall is perfect and during this night, there was a very active line of thunderstorms in the far south, with some massive cloud to cloud lightning, adding drama to the scene.
Prints available: ralf-rohner.pixels.com
EXIF
Canon EOS 6D, astro modified
Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8
iOptron Skytracker Pro
Sky:
3 panel panorama, each a stack of 6 x 90s @ ISO 1600, f/5
Foreground:
3 panel panorama, each a stack of 6 x 30s @ ISO 1600, f/2.8
Thunderstorm:
Stack of 2 x 15s @ ISO 400, f/2.8
PS:
In case you wonder why I shot the sky at f/5... Shooting in the dark is never easy and the crammed space on the ridge distracted me enough to accidently close my aperture to f/5. Thanks to my habit to regularly check the histogram, I noticed that my exposures were too dark, but fatigue prevented me from finding the reason and I therefore simply increased the exposure time to 90s. After finishing the sky sequence, I noticed my mistake. I checked the shots on my LCD and found that the tracking was spot on, but of course I opened the aperture again for the foreground panorama.
Late Summer Drama
During the last days of August, I was able to tick one more spot off my bucket list: The Chruezberg is a prominent row of sharp rising peaks on the eastern edge of the Alpstein Mountains. Is forms a towering cliff high above the Rhine valley and looks absolutely breathtaking when viewed from a ridge north a small pass named Saxer Luecke (Saxer Gap).
The densely populated Rhine Valley produces strong light pollution, but luckily, the sky is still dark enough to allow Milky Way photography and the artificial light from below nicely illuminates the foreground.
In late summer, the position of the Milky Way at nightfall is perfect and during this night, there was a very active line of thunderstorms in the far south, with some massive cloud to cloud lightning, adding drama to the scene.
Prints available: ralf-rohner.pixels.com
EXIF
Canon EOS 6D, astro modified
Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8
iOptron Skytracker Pro
Sky:
3 panel panorama, each a stack of 6 x 90s @ ISO 1600, f/5
Foreground:
3 panel panorama, each a stack of 6 x 30s @ ISO 1600, f/2.8
Thunderstorm:
Stack of 2 x 15s @ ISO 400, f/2.8
PS:
In case you wonder why I shot the sky at f/5... Shooting in the dark is never easy and the crammed space on the ridge distracted me enough to accidently close my aperture to f/5. Thanks to my habit to regularly check the histogram, I noticed that my exposures were too dark, but fatigue prevented me from finding the reason and I therefore simply increased the exposure time to 90s. After finishing the sky sequence, I noticed my mistake. I checked the shots on my LCD and found that the tracking was spot on, but of course I opened the aperture again for the foreground panorama.