Death Valley Milky Way

[JimFox]

From a quick run last week in Death Valley. It was pushing it in terms of the Milky Way and the Moon, but I still had an hour or so of darkness to play with the Milky Way in Mesquite Dunes. Looking back on the pano, I am not totally happy now as I should have realized that the left side of the pano was excluding the sand tiles. This does work well I think for smaller partial Milky Way shots where I was focusing more on the core. Also, those sand tiles are super easy to get brighter and whiter. In the end I went with the cooler cast as they were reflecting the light from the sky, but maybe going whiter would be more splashy?

All comments are welcome,

Jim

 

[Ben Egbert]

Pretty cool Jim. I might try a Milky way when I am at Skyline. If I can stay awake that is

 

[MonikaC]

If you had moved further right do you think you would have gotten the sand tiles on the left? It's pretty hard to see that stuff in the dark, though.

 

[AlanLichty]

Nice one - the full arc of the MW makes a neat scene.

 

[rfkiii]

Pretty cool Jim. I might try a Milky way when I am at Skyline. If I can stay awake that is

Just calculate the time of year the MW will appear after sunset and before at 10 pm.

 

[JimFox]

Pretty cool Jim. I might try a Milky way when I am at Skyline. If I can stay awake that is

You should try it Ben! You can always go to sleep and set your alarm to wake up about midnight. The later in the year it gets the earlier the MW rises which mines the arch of it is higher in the sky earlier which the higher it gets the harder making pano’s get.

 

[JimFox]

If you had moved further right do you think you would have gotten the sand tiles on the left? It's pretty hard to see that stuff in the dark, though.

In hind sight, I think I had a little more room to move. This is one of the larger displays of tiles. Some of them are rather small. It was actually pretty easy to see in the dark. I had the moon up to light my way.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Another wonderful rendition of the Milky Way - the full arch of it really makes the seen pop!

ML

 

[JimFox]

Another wonderful rendition of the Milky Way - the full arch of it really makes the seen pop!

ML

Thanks so much Mike.

 

[Jim Dockery]

Looks great to me. Might be a bit better with the tiles filling the foreground, but I like it like this too.

 

[Luvwine]

Never having successfully captured the milky way, I am not one to criticize. I like this very much. A niggle is that it feels a bit off kilter in that the tiles are not quite centered on the arch of the milky way. I would also like a bit more breathing room around the arch itself. Not sure if moving to the right might have made it feel more symmetrical or not and yes, including a bit more on the left would have helped. Still, wish I had made this image!

 

[Alisa]

I like this version too!

 

[Douglas Sherman]

Wow! This looks otherworldly, Jim.

 

[JimFox]

Never having successfully captured the milky way, I am not one to criticize. I like this very much. A niggle is that it feels a bit off kilter in that the tiles are not quite centered on the arch of the milky way. I would also like a bit more breathing room around the arch itself. Not sure if moving to the right might have made it feel more symmetrical or not and yes, including a bit more on the left would have helped. Still, wish I had made this image!

Thanks Stephen! Yeah, I wish I had the tile fill the foreground too.

 

[JimFox]

Looks great to me. Might be a bit better with the tiles filling the foreground, but I like it like this too.

I appreciate that Jim. Yeah, next time... I will get the tile to better fill the foreground. Perhaps my issue is I don't do a lot of Pano's, so I didn't catch that the bottom left.