Mono Colors

As the year draws to a close, many people share collections of their favorite images from past posts. While I could do the same, I prefer to focus on the wealth of unprocessed data waiting on my hard drives.

 

Here’s a newly processed image from Mono Lake, which had been sitting in my backlog for far too long. It captures a memorable moment from the final night of my 2023 astrophotography trip.

 

The plan was to meet my friend Roi Levi, who drove up from L.A. to join me. Unfortunately, his car broke down just a few miles from Mono Lake. But that didn’t stop him - true to his dedication, he instructed the tow truck driver to drop him at our meeting point. Once there, he transferred his gear into my car, and we spent the night photographing the stunning tufas of Mono Lake.

 

His determination was well rewarded: we were treated to perfect conditions and a brilliant display of airglow along the horizon. For this panorama, I aimed to enhance the sky’s vibrant colors with subtle low-level lighting on the foreground. The result is, certainly, as colorful as a mono image can get.

 

EXIF

Canon EOS-R, astro-modified

Sigma 28mm f/1.4 ART

IDAS NBZ filter

iOptron SkyTracker Pro

Low Level Lighting

 

Sky:

Panorama of 11 panels, each a stack of 7x 45s @ ISO1600, unfiltered & 3x 105s @ ISO6400, filtered

 

Forground:

Panorama of 11x 60s @ ISO3200

Done