View allAll Photos Tagged Cosmology
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
26 x 13 seconds
35mm
f3.5
ISO 4000
Stitched in PTGui
This is a 325 megapixel panorama of the Milky Way setting over Salt Lake near Cataby, Western Australia. I normally shoot at f1.8 with this lens but forgot to change it before taking this panorama so the aperture stayed at f3.5, doh!
I scoped out this small lake on Google Maps, which is about 170km north of Perth. There are a number of dead trees standing in the lake's water which is what caught my eye but unfortunately the only accessible ones were on the other side of the lake which faces east. The two you see here are in some thick reeds, home to hundreds of spiders and probably a snake or two!
Our local Parks & Wildlife department were having their annual controlled burn offs so there was a lot of smoke around the city which explains the yellow hues you see in this shot.
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.
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
50mm + Hoya Red Intensifier Filter
85 x 30 seconds
ISO 3200
f/3.2
iOptron SkyTracker
Stitched in MSICE
This is an 85 shot image of the Milky Way rising over Island Point in Western Australia. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds can be seen on the right side of the image, along with some significant green airglow (thanks to the use of a tracking mount). The Carina Nebula is at the top, just right of centre, highlighted nicely by the didymium filter. The light pollution is coming from the city of Bunbury, approximately 80km (50mi) to the south.
You'll notice the lack of an arch in this image, it's because I used a different projection method in the stitching software. Normally I use Mercator but this time I went with Transverse Mercator, mainly because it's not quite a full panorama and as such wouldn't have had a full arch and would have looked a bit unfinished.
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
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
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.
Nikon d5100
Tokina AT-X Pro 11-16mm @ 13mm
f2.8
ISO 4000
3 x 25 seconds
I seem to be doing mainly panorama/mosaic shots these days :)
This is another small vertical pano stitched in MS ICE. It comprises three landscape shots on top of one another in order to get the core of the MW into the shot, which was pretty much directly overhead. The gnarly tree is framing the island, backlit by light pollution from nearby towns.
If you look closely, the Small Magellanic Cloud appears to be perched on a branch like a small bird :)
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 d5500
50mm w/Hoya filter
69 x 8 seconds
ISO 4000
f/2.2
Stitched in MS ICE
Finally after two months of cloudy weather we got some clear nights so I took a trip 80km north to an old pine plantation just off the main road. About 15 minutes in though the clouds started rolling in and soon they were covering the core. I was about to pack it all in but decided to keep going in case I was able to salvage something later. Thankfully there was a clear patch that let me get off a quick panorama :)
The dead pine in the middle of the image is one of a handful left standing in this former pine plantation (the ones in the background are part of a rest stop area). The core is setting to the west while the light pollution on the left is from the city of Perth. The image covers approximately 200 degrees of the night sky from south to north.
I used a Hoya Red Intensifier didymium filter which helps remove some light pollution as well as enhancing nebulae.
Lost Bridal Veil 2015
Michael Belmore – Anishnaabe (b.1971)
The choice of copper for this large work is significant, representing a pure element of nature that is both precious and utilitarian. The medium is also culturally meaningful in Anishnaabe cosmology as copper originates from the blood of the Thunderbird.
Nikon d5500
35mm
ISO 3200
f/2.5
Foreground: 12 x 15 seconds
Sky: 33 x 30 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
This is a 45 shot panorama of the Milky Way, Zodiacal Light & the setting moon over Lake Towerrinning about 2.5 hours south east of Perth in Western Australia.
This is the second time I have visited this location, the first of which was quite still, wind wise, so I managed to get some nice reflections. Unfortunately this time the wind was reasonably strong so no reflections, well only hazy ones of the brighter stars. Even so, it creates a nice shimmer effect on the surface I guess. This was very late in the season so not enough time to shoot a 50mm pano as I had a couple of other locations to get to as well before the core set.
The setting moon can be seen near the end of the jetty on the left, it was only at about 5% illumination so didn't affect the sky too much.
Nikon d5100
11mm
f3.2
2 x 100 x 30s
ISO 1600
This is a two shot panorama, each shot consisting of 100 individual photos, processed in startrails.exe then merged in PTGui.
The Pinnacles Desert is approx 200km north of Perth in Western Australia. This particular night was unusually busy for such a remote location with cars regularly driving past, the glow of the headlights created an interesting effect for me here creating silhouettes of some pinnacles in the background. The foreground was light painted by my handheld spotlight, held close to the ground to accentuate the ripples in the sand.
Nikon d5500
85mm
ISO 4000
f/2.2
Foreground: 8 x 20 seconds
Sky: 28 x 20 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
This is a 36 shot panorama of the Crux & Carina region of the Milky Way as it aligns perpendicularly with the horizon at The Pinnacles Desert, 2 hours north of Perth in Western Australia.
Panoramas with an 85mm lens (on a crop factor body) can take ages to shoot so I tried something different this night. I increased the ISO and opened the aperture slightly more in order to allow me shorter exposure times and as a result, a shorter duration for the entire panorama.
Prominent in this image is the Carina Nebula just below centre and the Coalsack Nebula near the top with Crux (the Southern Cross) adjacent to it.
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...
Nikon d5100
35mm
ISO 3200
f2.0
58 x 13 seconds
This one comes in at just under 150MP. Strangely it outputted at a much heftier 500MP when using Microsoft ICE but I preferred the result that PTGui gave me. I really like the amount of detail I get from these 35mm panoramas, despite how much more work is involved in both shooting them and then stitching it all together.
This panorama stretches approximately 200 degrees from east to west. The light pollution behind the lighthouse is from my home city of Perth, directly south of Guilderton. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are clearly visible just above the light pollution to the right of the lighthouse.
**Update**
This photo has been featured in Youreeka's Youtube video 'Southern Night Sky Astronomy Highlights'
This is a photo of the view out my window, taken with a one second exposure while intentionally moving the camera vertically, which conveys the essence of the winter landscape. Plato had the thought that the material world of observable phenomena is a manifestation of a more fundamental level of essence forms. In Hindu cosmology, the material world sits on the back of a turtle. What's below the turtle? It's turtles all the way down.
The way this image is displayed on my computer monitor, when I stand up and look at it from above, a neat optical illusion occurs. The light and dark areas in the image become reversed.
Nikon d5500
50mm + Hoya Red Intensifier Filter
97 x 8 seconds
ISO 4000
f/2.2
Stitched in MS ICE
This is a 97 image panorama shot at Herron Point, approximately 75km (50mi) south of Perth in Western Australia. Herron Point is a small camping area on the shores of Collin's Pool, more popular for crabbing than astrophotography :)
This particular image covers approximately 220 degrees of the night sky with the core of the galaxy setting to the west and the Magellanic Clouds visible to the south (left side). The moon can be seen setting to the left of the large, wind swept tree in the middle. It was only at about 5 percent illumination but looks much brighter due to the long exposure.
Nikon d5500
325 x 30s
ISO 400
f/3.5
11mm
Processed in startrails.exe
This is a 3 hour exposure (325 images at 30 seconds each) of the Guilderton Lighthouse 125km north of Perth in Western Australia. The waning gibbous moon was below the horizon when I began and started moving above the horizon about two thirds of the way through, casting its ambient light on the lighthouse and adding a blue hue to the sky.
The weather forecast for the night was for light winds but when I got there it was absolutely howling, so much so that my car was being rocked by the wind. With star trail images, any slight knock on your tripod can ruin the final image so I'd already given up as soon as I saw how windy it was. But I'd come this far so I wasn't going home straight away! Luckily the wind wasn't nearly as bad behind the lighthouse and not a single image was affected. Phew!
In the past I had inadvertently overexposed the individual stars in my star trail images with a high ISO and wide aperture, this time though I lowered the ISO and stopped down the aperture to allow the colour of the stars to show, hence the colourful trails. Stars emit a different coloured light depending on their surface temperature with cooler stars emitting red/orange light and hotter stars emitting a blue light.
Nikon d5500
50mm
ISO 5000
f/2.5
147 x 8s
Hoya Red Intensifier filter
This is a 147 shot panorama of the Milky Way over the Stirling Ranges National Park about 400km south of Perth and home to one of the state's highest peaks in Bluff Knoll. The night sky here is rated as Bortle 1, the darkest on the scale.
I had so much trouble trying to get this to stitch together, which I referenced in an earlier post, but I finally managed to pull it off all these months later and even though the result isn't perfect I am happy with it. Many of the brighter stars had their light diffused by the thin cloud layer that drifted across the sky as I was shooting and is visible in various parts of the image.
Nikon d5500
50mm + Hoya Red Intensifier Filter
ISO 3200
f/3.2
5 x 10 seconds (foreground)
26 x 30 seconds (sky)
iOptron SkyTracker
Stitched in MSICE
This is a 31 shot, 266MP image of the Milky Way over Island Point in Western Australia. It's the first proper attempt at imaging the night sky with an iOptron SkyTracker mount.
It was a fairly windy night so no reflections in the water this time around. Using the SkyTracker I was able to increase the exposure for each shot from 8 seconds to 30 seconds, the byproduct of which is not only a more detailed Milky Way but also a significantly longer time to complete each shoot. It also means having to constantly readjust your horizontal plane when shooting panoramas.
The bright light pollution towards the bottom right is from the city of Bunbury approximately 80km (50mi) to the south.
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.