Bow of Fire

The starry bow of the spring Milky Way over a landscape is a fascinating view and one of my favorite nightscape subjects. The low lying Milky Way not only allows capturing the galactic core region with the dark horse and the colorful constellations of Scorpius and Ophiuchi close to the horizon but also Cygnus, Cepheus and Cassiopeia with their abundance of red hydrogen emission nebulae.

 

In early March, I had my first opportunity this year to greet the Milky Way core from Switzerland.

 

Capturing this panorama view was a challenge. I only had about 63 minutes between core rise and astronomical dawn and the planned total exposure time was 52.5 minutes. I therefore only had 10 minutes for filter changes and reframing between the individual panels of the panorama. My panorama workflow proved to be fast enough to do it, but it definitely wasn't a relaxed shooting.

 

Prints available: ralf-rohner.pixels.com

 

EXIF

Custom astro-modified Canon EOS R

Sigma 28mm f/1.4 ART

IDAS NBZ filter

iOptron SkyTracker Pro

Sky:

Panorama of 7 panels, each a stack of 6x 30s @ ISO1600, f/2 unfiltered + 3 x 90s @ ISO6400, f/2, filtered

Foreground:

7 panel panorama, each a stack of 4 x 60s @ ISO3200, f/2,8

Done