View allAll Photos Tagged COSMOLOGICAL
35mm
f1.8
ISO 5000
34 x 13 seconds
Stitched in MS ICE
This panorama consists of 34 landscape oriented shots taken at The Pinnacles Desert, 200km (120mi) north of the state capital Perth. The core here is setting towards the west with the Large & Small Magellanic Clouds above the light pollution of Perth to the left of the shot. The entire image covers approximately 200 degrees of the night sky from south to north.
Nikon d5500
35mm
ISO 4000
f/2.5
55 x 30 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
This is a 55 shot panorama of the Milky Way over a small lake in Beverley, Western Australia about 2 hours east of Perth. The foreground was light painted with a hand held spotlight. Even though I was using a tracker, the spotlight acted as a flash, 'freezing' the foreground and not blurring it.
Every single atom of us is. Result of endless transformations. We tend to think that it is the 20th and then the 21st century that produced this kind of cosmological knowledge. However, looking back and at the nature philosophy of antiquity, we find that the ancient thinkers have already been there. At least in theory. Europe's oldest book (i.e. a surviving manuscript), the Derveni Papyrus (4th century BC and kept in the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki) is suggesting that there is no creation from nothing. There always was "something", a kind of primordial and self-organising substance that by constant change and transformation produced the world and us. This is a scientific approach that is fascinating. The author of the papyrus then goes on to explain that people later started to give a name to this primordial substance and called it God. And suddenly we are talking theology. Science and theology have always been in a conversation. Problems do arise when one tries to shut (or shout) down the other. Leica M8, Voigtlaender 35/1.4.
Nikon D5100
Tokina AT-X Pro 11-16mm
12 x 25 seconds
ISO 2000
f2.8
12mm
This is a 12 shot panorama of the waning crescent moon (also called the old moon) rising under the Milky Way taken at the Gnangara pine plantation 60km north of Perth, Western Australia. I used Microsoft ICE to stitch this one. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds can be seen just above the glow of the city's light pollution to the bottom right of the photo.
Nikon D5100
ISO 4000
30 seconds
f2.8
Tokina ATX-Pro 11-16mm @ 11mm
This is a 34 shot panorama covering approximately 200 degrees of the night sky, from a little beyond east to a little beyond west on the right side of the photo. The core of the Milky Way is prominent but also visible are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. You can spot Jupiter setting on the far right, reflected quite heavily on the lake surface.
As per my recent photos, the area is famous for its thrombolites, seen here in the foreground. They're microbial formations which have been part of our planet's landscape for billions of years. Lake Clifton is one of the few places in the world where you can see them now.
I met a fellow photographer (Daisy) who is a graduate astronomy student at Cornell. Other than showing me around to take pictures of some of the beautiful architecture on campus she was kind enough to let me pick her brain on cosmology and astronomy questions.
A beautiful night - in the mid 60's yesterday!
11 x 13 seconds
f2.0
ISO 4000
35mm
This is another one taken a few weeks ago at a small unnamed salt lake in Cataby, 160km north of Perth in Western Australia. I was trying to make my way to the other side of the lake when I spotted this gnarly looking dead tree all alone in a clearing with the Milky Way setting behind it. I light painted the tree with a hand held spotlight.
Nikon d5500
50mm + Hoya Red Intensifier filter
ISO 4000
f/3.2
62 x 30s
iOptron SkyTracker
This is the last of the Milky Way shots I took over the southern hemisphere summer, when the core is normally below the horizon at night.
I have been to this location quite a few times for astrophotography. It's famous for its thrombolites, the most ancient lifeforms on Earth, which you can see clearly in the foreground. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are visible on the right side of the image and the bright pink splotch is the Carina Nebula.
Nikon d5500
50mm + Hoya Red Intensifier filter
ISO 4000
f/2.5
Sky: 84 x 30 seconds
Foreground: 34 x 30 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
This is a 118 shot panorama of the Milky Way rising over Windy Harbour, a small 'off the grid' town in the far south of Western Australia, about 4 hours from Perth. Thankfully the town didn't live up to its name and conditions were quite calm.
Prominent in this image are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds just above the rocky headland to the right and a little further above these is the magenta coloured Carina Nebula.
Originally coming out at 900 megapixels I had to cut it down in size quite a bit in order to get a file size that Flickr would accept and so it's now only a touch under 350 megapixels.
Borobudur, or Barabudur, is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist monument near Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. The monument comprises six square platforms topped by three circular platforms, and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues.. A main dome, located at the center of the top platform, is surrounded by 72 Buddha statues seated inside perforated stupa.
The monument is both a shrine to the Lord Buddha and a place for Buddhist pilgrimage. The journey for pilgrims begins at the base of the monument and follows a path circumambulating the monument while ascending to the top through the three levels of Buddhist cosmology, namely Kāmadhātu (the world of desire), Rupadhatu (the world of forms) and Arupadhatu (the world of formlessness). During the journey, the monument guides the pilgrims through a system of stairways and corridors with 1,460 narrative relief panels on the walls and the balustrades.
Evidence suggests Borobudur was abandoned following the 14th-century decline of Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms in Java, and the Javanese conversion to Islam. Worldwide knowledge of its existence was sparked in 1814 by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, then the British ruler of Java, who was advised of its location by native Indonesians. Borobudur has since been preserved through several restorations. The largest restoration project was undertaken between 1975 and 1982 by the Indonesian government and UNESCO, following which the monument was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Borobudur is still used for pilgrimage; once a year Buddhists in Indonesia celebrate Vesak at the monument, and Borobudur is Indonesia's single most visited tourist attraction.
Wat Arun is a buddhist temple located on the west bank of the Chao Phraya River. It is named after Aruṇa, the Hindu god associated with the rising sun. The temple has existed since the 17th century, but its iconic central prang (spire) was built in the early 19th century during the reigns of Rama II and Rama III. This prang is decorated with colorful porcelain and shells from Chinese trade ships, symbolizes Mount Meru in Hindu cosmology. The prang is surrounded by four smaller spires and topped with a seven-pronged trident known as the "Trident of Shiva." Statues of ancient Chinese soldiers, animals, and Hindu gods adorn the structure. The nearby Ordination Hall features a Niramitr Buddha image, with murals from the reign of Rama V and two yaksha (demon) guardian statues at the entrance.
Small anecdote: Wat Arun housed the Emerald Buddha before it was moved to Wat Phra Kaew in 1785.
Photo taken at Wat Pho pier
Heathens commonly adopt a cosmology based on that found in Norse mythology—Norse cosmology. As part of this framework, humanity's world—known as Midgard—is regarded as just one of Nine Worlds, all of which are associated with a cosmological world tree called Yggdrasil. Different types of being are believed to inhabit these different realms; for instance, humans live on Midgard, while dwarfs live on another realm, elves on another, jötnar on another, and the divinities on two further realms.
Most practitioners believe that this is a poetic or symbolic description of the cosmos, with the different levels representing higher realms beyond the material plane of existence.
The world tree is also interpreted by some in the community as an icon for ecological and social engagement. Some Heathens, such as the psychologist Brian Bates, have adopted an approach to this cosmology rooted in analytical psychology, thereby interpreting the nine worlds and their inhabitants as maps of the human mind.
9 x 13 seconds
35mm
f1.8
ISO 5000
Stitched in MS ICE
This is a 9 shot panorama taken at The Pinnacles Desert in Western Australia. The brightest part of the core here is about 15 degrees above the horizon, setting towards the west. Mars can be seen just to the left of the Lagoon Nebula at about 18 degrees.
The Pinnacles Desert is located approximately 200km north of the state capital, Perth. It's known for its limestone formations which rise out of the desert, though none are seen in this photo.
Nikon d5500
35mm
18 x 30 seconds
f/2.2
ISO 4000
iOptron SkyTracker
Stitched in PTGui
Taken at Lake Ninan near Wongan Hills approximately 200km NE of Perth. The light pollution on the left is from the nearby Wheatbelt town of Calingiri.
Tepkik, 2018-2019, an installation by artist Jordan Bennett (Mi'kmaq, from Stephenville Crossing, Newfoundland and Labrador) is suspended in the Scotiabank Great Hall. The work is inspired by Mi'kmaq petroglyphs and the traditional colours of Mi'kmaq quillwork. The installation's shape suggests the Milky Way, while the designs on the banners represent ancestral cosmology, referencing the sky and the water worlds.
Nikon d5500
35mm
21 x 30 seconds
ISO 4000
f/2.2
This was taken quite late in the Milky Way season, in October. It's a 21 image, tracked panorama using an iOptron SkyTracker mount. This was the last of a few panoramas I took that night but the others were affected by cloud cover. I was also getting attacked by millions of bugs everytime I turned on my torch to adjust my tripod :)
Being late in the season, the core is quite close to the horizon and as such the light is scattered much more as it has to travel through significantly more atmosphere, colours and detail are reduced as a result of this scattering.
Lake Clifton is about an hour's drive from my home and has some quite dark skies for its proximity to large cities.
Cosmology is the science of the origin and development of the universe. This closeup of a cosmo seems like a better than average point of view from which to start thinking about such a thing. Or maybe start instead with the hanging rain drop, down on the right.
Location: Autal, Riehen BS Switzerland.
In my album: Dan' Flower Power.
The Very Large Array is a centimeter-wavelength radio astronomy built in the 1970s. It lies in central New Mexico on the Plains of San Agustin, between the towns of Magdalena and Datil, approximately 50 miles (80 km) west of Socorro. The VLA comprises twenty-eight 25-meter radio telescopes
Astronomers using the VLA have made key observations of black holes and protoplanetary disks around young stars, discovered magnetic filaments and traced complex gas motions at the Milky Way's center, probed the Universe's cosmological parameters, and provided new knowledge about the physical mechanisms that produce radio emission.
Nikon d5100
50mm
139 x 8 seconds
f/1.8
ISO 3200
Stitched in MS ICE
This is a 139 image panorama covering over 200 degrees of the night sky above Lake Clifton in Western Australia. Shot at 50mm, you can clearly see the Large & Small Magellanic Clouds on the left side of the panorama at about SSE with the core setting towards the west in the middle and the light pollution from the nearby city of Mandurah prominent on the right side at around NNE.
Lake Clifton is well known for being one of the last remaining locations on the planet to host thrombolites, the oldest lifeforms on Earth. In late summer, early winter, they are visible above the surface but this was taken in early spring so the water level was too high to see them.
50mm
f1.8
ISO 5000
103 x 6 seconds
Stitched in PTGui
This is another 50mm panorama taken at Serpentine Dam, not far from the outskirts of the Perth metropolitan area so I had to deal with quite a bit of light pollution, as you can see.
The Magellanic Clouds can be seen above the dam tower.
Nikon d5500
50mm + Hoya Red Intensifier filter
ISO 4000
f/3.2
Sky: 55 x 30 seconds
Foreground: 17 x 15 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
This is a 72 shot image of the Carina/Crux region of the Milky Way as it aligns perpendicular with the horizon. To the right are the Large & Small Magellanic Clouds. The Pinnacles Desert is an area of limestone rock protrusions across two square km near the Indian Ocean, approximately 2 hours north of Perth.
neither causes nor consequences
35mm
6 x 13 seconds
ISO 4000
f/2
Taken at Cataby in Western Australia, 160km north of Perth. The core is creeping below the horizon just about to disappear for the night.
Nikon d5500
50mm + Hoya Red Intensifier filter
ISO 3200
f/2.8
Foreground: 26 x 13 seconds
Sky: 77 x 30 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
This is a 103 shot panorama of the Milky Way setting over a dry lake bed at Yenyening Lakes near Beverley, about two hours east of Perth in Western Australia.
This is a late season panorama with the core low on the western horizon. In this part of the world the galactic band is viewed almost horizonally aligned with the horizon as sets to the west. There is always quite a bit of controlled burning going on at this time of year, before the summer sets in, so the air in parts is quite thick with smoke which scatters the light giving it a yellow/orange glow as you can see here. Two prominent magenta/red coloured nebulae can be seen also just above the horizon, Carina on the far left and the North America Nebula on the right.
The Eagle Nebula (catalogued as Messier 16 or M16, and as NGC 6611, and also known as the Star Queen Nebula and The Spire) is a young open cluster of stars in the constellation Serpens, discovered by Jean-Philippe de Chéseaux in 1745-46. Both the "Eagle" and the "Star Queen" refer to visual impressions of the dark silhouette near the centre of the nebula, an area made famous as the "Pillars of Creation" photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. The nebula contains several active star-forming gas and dust regions, including the Pillars of Creation.
This region of active current star formation is about 7000 light-years distant. A spire of gas that can be seen coming off the nebula is approximately 9.5 light-years or about 90 trillion kilometres long.
Details
M: Mesu 200
T: ODK10
C: QSI683 with 3nm Astrodon Ha filter
28x1800s in Ha and 16x1800s in OIII
Total exposure 22 hours
35mm
ISO 4000
31 x 13 seconds
f/1.8
Stitched in MS ICE.
Taken from a wooden bridge over the catchment area at North Dandalup Dam approximately 70km south of Perth in Western Australia.
The skies are just starting to turn blue as the sun was a little over an hour away from rising. I had to interrupt some kangaroos who were enjoying an early breakfast on the grassed area near the bridge :)
Nikon d5500
35mm
ISO 3200
f/2.5
Sky: 17 x 30 seconds
Foreground: 26 x 15 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
This is a 43 shot panorama of the Milky Way over a section of rapids on the Murray River at Lane Poole Reserve in Dwellingup, about an hour south east of Perth in Western Australia.
Nikon d5500
50mm + Hoya Red Intensifier Filter
ISO 3200
f/2.8
Sky - 12 x 30 seconds
Foreground - 6 x 13 seconds
Tracked with an iOptron SkyTracker
Stitched in MS ICE
This is an 18 shot panorama/mosaic of the Milky Way setting over a farm in Keysbrook, Western Australia.
This location is only half an hour from my home in the heavily light polluted Perth metropolitan area but with the Hoya filter, that's not a problem anymore :)
Nikon d5500
35mm
ISO 3200
f/2.5
Sky: 20 x 30s
Foreground: 5 x 30s
iOptron SkyTracker
This is a panorama of the Milky Way rising over an abandoned farmhouse near the Wheatbelt town of Boddington about 120km SE of Perth in Western Australia.
Nikon d5500
85mm
ISO 3200
f/2.5
Foreground: 58 x 6 seconds
Sky: 335 x 30 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
This is a 393 shot panorama of the Milky Way rising above Isand Point about an hour south of Perth in Western Australia.
Yes, you read that right - 393 shots! Why so many? Well this was really just a test, I've never shot a full panorama with this lens and I had a feeling I might run out of time before the core hit zenith so I went out to see if I was right. Unfortunately I was. I started off at the horizon (bad move) and for the time it took to shoot each row the core was moving further and further away. I'll be starting at the top row in the future!
It took roughly four hours to shoot and with a ball head tripod once you get to zenith you are literally just moving the camera around itself, so not ideal. When I got home and stitched the panorama there was quite a bit of sky missing so I had to go back a couple of weeks later to finish it off. Speaking of stitching, PTGui wanted to output the full res image at 15 gigapixels while MS ICE wanted 3TB of free space before even thinking about outputting the pano. I had to settle for a much smaller file size, less than 1 gigapixel.
The Butterfly nebula (IC1318) is located in the constellation of Cygnus. The whole region is huge... Here you can only see IC1318b (upper area of nebulosity) and IC1318c (the lower area). IC1318b and c constitute a single giant HII cloud bisected by a thick obscuring dust lane known as LDN 889 which is shown in the middle of the frame.
The bright star to the top right is a class F8 star known as Sadr or Gamma Cygni. Its true location is only 750 light years away and not related to the nebulosity which is much more distant at 5000 light years.
This is a 6 pane mono mosaic. It has been stitched together using Astro Pixel Processor, whch created a seamless mosaic.
Details
M: Mesu 200
T: TMB 152/1200
C: QSI683 with 3nm Astrodon Ha filter
16x1800s in EACH pane, totalling 48 hours of exposure time.
Second turist gave up over here.
Some people do not acclimate to high altitude. There is no way to get to the Andes the day before and play sports, walk, breath, eat and we live at sea level.
Three novice monks on the walls of hsinbyume Pagoda, Mingun, Myanmar.
The famous white temple in Mandalay is the ＂Hsinbyume Pagoda＂ or ＂Myatheindan Pagoda.＂ It＇s an iconic Buddhist temple with unique whitewashed architecture resembling the mythical Mount Meru. Commissioned by King Bagyidaw in 1816 in memory of his wife, Princess Hsinbyume, the temple symbolizes the seven mountain ranges encircling Mount Meru. Its design represents Buddhist cosmology and is adorned with intricate details, reflecting Mandalay＇s rich cultural heritage and spiritual significance.
[...] All is flux, nothing stays still [...]
-- Quote by Heraclitus of Ephesus (Greek philosopher remembered for his cosmology, 540-480BC)
Nikon D200, Tokina 12-24 f/4, 24mm - f/22 - 8s - Cokin ND8 optical filter
Mazzano Romano, Italy (July, 2016)
Nikon d5100
12 x 25 seconds
ISO 5000
f2.8
11mm
This is the old control station at Canning Dam, the building is about 76 years old and sits in the middle of the dam wall.
This panorama consists of 12 landscape orientated photos, stitched in MS ICE. The light pollution is from the Perth metropolitan area about 10km away while the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are just to the left of the light pollution.
50mm + Hoya red intensifier
76 x 6 seconds
ISO 3200
f/1.8
This one was a near disaster. I drove 125km to this location only to be thwarted by cloud cover. My first thought was to get back in the car and head home but I decided to go ahead and keep shooting in the hope it would clear by the time I got to the more interesting bits and thankfully it did.
The Hoya red intensifier filter gives the clouds their colour and also makes some nebula stand out including the Carina Nebula on the right side of the image. A mining operation a few km away is the source of the light reflecting off the clouds in the middle. As always, the Large Magellanic Cloud is prominent near the bottom right.
This was shot at Harvey Dam approximately 125km south of Perth in Western Australia.
I just can't resist shooting Andromeda when it comes into view in my garden. So I shot it once again and I am fascinated by it's details while processing the image. Of course there are far better photos out there, but shooting and processing it is a fun thing to do for me. This time I had 207 lightframes resulting in 3h 27m total integration time. Shot around new moon. Darks and flats applied.
TS Optics 72mm,
Canon 550Da, no Filters,
207x60 sec.,
HEQ-5 Pro guided.
Deep Sky Stacker, Gimp, Lightroom,
Bortle 5, Germany
50mm + Hoya didymium filter
152 x 6 seconds
ISO 4000
f/2.2
Stitched in MS ICE
This was shot at a pine plantation in Jarrahdale, Western Australia earlier this morning. With the Milky Way directly overhead there was a lot of sky to cover, hence the number of shots it took for this image. There are no Magellanic Clouds in this one as I pointed my camera in the other direction, towards the city of Perth, using the light pollution to silhouette the pine trees. The dirt road was light painted using a hand held spotlight (which took several attempts to NOT light the surrounding trees). The location itself is only 20km (12mi) from the outskirts of the city.
Nikon d5100
11 x 25 seconds
f2.8
ISO 5000
11mm
Stitched in MS ICE
11 shot panorama taken on the dam wall of Canning Reservoir in Western Australia. The dam was built in 1940 and is still a major source of fresh water for the city.
Mars can be seen shining brightly in the top left corner, just a week after opposition. The light pollution on the right is from the Perth suburb of Armadale, just 10km away.
35mm
32 x 13 seconds
ISO 4000
f/2.0
Ok, not gonna lie, this is a mirrored composite. I don't normally do these but I wasn't entirely happy with the original pano so decided to be a bit creative instead :)
To get the reflections I played around with blurring in photoshop for a more realistic effect.
The light pollution is from Perth, approximately 160km to the south. The orange/yellow hue is due to pollutants in the smoke haze that had enveloped the city over the previous few days due to controlled burn offs.
Nikon d5500
50mm + Hoya Red Intensifier filter
ISO 3200
f/2.8
Foreground: 24 x 30 seconds
Sky: 87 x 30 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
This is a 111 shot panorama of the Milky Way over Pink Lake just outside of Quairading, about two hours east of Perth in Western Australia.
Once again, the yellow/orange glow is light scattered by smoke particles in the air due to prescribed burning that day. Also prominent in this image is the Carina Nebula just above the horizon on the far left, the North America Nebula on the far right and the colourful Rho Ophiuchi Complex in the middle.
And yes, I stood in the middle of the road to shoot this panorama and only had to move a couple of times to allow passing traffic, which given the remoteness of the area can be heard coming from miles away. Having some chalk in your bag is handy for marking your tripod on the road in these situations :)
Nikon d5500
50mm + Hoya Red Intensifier filter
ISO 4000
f/2.2
Foreground: 25 x 6 seconds
Sky: 96 x 30 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
This is a 126 image panorama of the Milky Way & Magellanic Clouds over The Pinnacles Desert, about 2 hours north of Perth in Western Australia.
Originally coming out at 1.3 gigapixels it had to be drastically downsized to fit within Flickr's 200MB file size limit so now it's a 'measly' 436 megapixels.
Prominent in this image are, of course, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds on the left. the pink coloured Carina Nebula just down and right of the LMC, the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex in the centre of the image and the North America Nebula at the tail end of the galactic band on the right, just visible in the red airglow. The foreground was light painted with a hand held spotlight and evened out in post with a bit of selective dodging and burning.
Nikon d5500
50mm + Hoya Red Intensifier filter
61 x 30 seconds
ISO 4000
f/2.8
iOptron SkyTracker
Stitched in MS ICE
For those of us in the Southern Hemisphere, the Milky Way off season (where the core is not visible) is during our summer months. Normally I take a hiaitus, or just stick to star trails, but this year I decided to try something different and shoot the 'tail' of the MW as it aligns perpendicular with the horizon. This part of the sky contains prominent features such as the Carina Nebula (pink splotch just above middle), the Coal Sack Nebula (dark patch right in the middle) and the ever present Magellanic Clouds. In order to get the alignment right I had to wait until about 1-2am. This is the first of a series of Summer Milky Way shots I took over the last few weeks and was taken at a familiar location, Island Point near Mandurah, about 100km south of my home city of Perth, Western Australia.
70 shots stacked in startrails.exe
Nikon d5100
30 seconds per shot
ISO 400
F2.8
Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm
Lake Clifton is about an hour's drive from Perth, Western Australia. It is host to a 'colony' of thrombolites or living rocks. These are Earth's most ancient life forms, dating back to the Archaean eon, well they are the result of them anyway. Millions of microbes secrete calcium carbonate (limestone) which forms the domes which stretch for 15km along the shores of the lake. The earliest fossils date back 3.5 billion years but these particular ones are around 2000 years old.
This was shot during a full moon which bathed the foreground in ambient light. You can see clouds beginning to move in from the west, forming whispy streaks on the right side of the photo.
Nikon d5500
35mm
ISO 4000
f/2.5
Sky: 28 x 30s
Foreground: 6 x 180s
iOptron SkyTracker
This is a 34 image panorama of the Milky Way with the core directly overhead at Salmon Beach in Windy Harbour This is an 'off the grid' town in the far south of Western Australia, a little over 4 hours from Perth.
With the core being directly overhead, moving from east to west, I was still able to incorporate it into the scene despite the fact I was facing almost north.
Nikon d5500
50mm
ISO 3200
f/2.8
Foreground: 6 x 10 seconds
Sky: 35 x 30 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
Hoya Red Intensifier filter
This is a 41 shot panorama of the Milky Way's crux region above the Pinnacles Desert, about 2 hours north of Perth in Western Australia. As with the other image I posted recently, the dew was really bad this night and at times it acted as a natural fog filter which is why some of the brighter stars look bloated (diffused).
Nikon d5100
ISO 3200
f/2.8
12mm
411 x 30s
This is 3hr 25m of star trails at Yenyening Lakes about 2 hours east of Perth in Western Australia. This was shot using my old camera. I left it alone to automatically capture shots every 33 seconds until the battery died while I was out at other spots in the same area with my d5500. This is a system of lakes in the WA Wheatbelt area and lucky for me there was very little wind so the lake surface was like a giant mirror reflecting the starlight. In retrospect I should have captured more of the reflections on the lake so maybe next time...