Shiprock

Shiprock is the best known volcanic neck of the Navajo Volcanic Field. It is the erosional remnant of a volcano pipe. The rock was formed 27 million years ago and about 1,000 meters below the Earth's surface but was exposed after millions of years of erosion.

 

Two wall-like sheets of minette rock, known as dikes, radiate out from the central formation in almost perfect south and west directions. These dikes are the remains of the lava flow that fed the eruption forming Shiprock.

 

To capture the full Milky Way arc centered over the iconic rock, I had to shoot from the western dike. Luckily, I found a saddle in the wall where I could walk and set up my tripod. I also had to shoot toward the light dome of the rock's namesake town of Shiprock and Farmington beyond, which brightly illuminated the strange cloud whose outstretched fingers seemed to mirror the jagged spires crowning the stunning rock formation.

 

EXIF

Canon EOS-R, astro-modified by EOS 4Astro

Sigma 28mm f/1.4 ART

IDAS NBZ filter

iOptron SkyTracker Pro

 

Foreground:

Focus stacked panorama of 9 panels, each 5x 0.5s @ ISO 200 during blue hour

 

Sky:

Tracked panorama of 9 panels, each a stack of 7x 45s @ ISO1600, unfiltered & 3x 105s @ ISO6400, filtered

Done