Venus in the cradle of the evening

[Nightscapades]

Yalwal Camping Area, New South Wales, Australia.
Despite having planned to get to this spot when Venus was higher in the sky, I ended up arriving just as the “evening star” was close to the horizon. By the time I lined up my camera and tripod to shoot this vertical panorama, the trees on the distant ridge were partly hiding Venus from my view. I grabbed the rig and stepped back and up onto the little rise that I was parked on, getting Venus at almost the right spot. I had to repeat this a couple of times before getting into a position that let me catch Venus just scraping the treetops, as you see here.

Midway between where Venus seems to be resting, and the dense core of the Milky Way, you can see Jupiter glowing almost as brightly as Venus itself. Reaching up from Venus, past Jupiter and fading out before the Milky Way’s dust lanes you can see a bright glowing band, known as the Zodiacal Light. Also known as the "false dawn", this astronomical feature is visible each year around the time of the equinoxes.

What you can’t see is how much the wind was blowing on this night. I’m surprised that the camera didn’t wobble during the 15 seconds that the shutter was open for each of the eight photos in the panorama.

I shot each of those eight photos with a Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, a Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 lens @ f/2.4, exposed for 15 seconds @ ISO 6400.

 

[Nightscapades]

I'm sorry my images are so big. I'm not sure where to find guidelines about what size to post at.

 

[AlanLichty]

Beautiful. Thanks for the exposure info although you mention 15 seconds and then 8 seconds below. I am still trying to learn how to take shots like this.

 

[AlanLichty]

I'm sorry my images are so big. I'm not sure where to find guidelines about what size to post at.

If you go over 1200 pixels wide the site software will resize it which tends to soften the details. For portrait mode I try to stay below 1200 pixels tall.

 

[JimFox]

This is so cool Doug! It's amazing it's like there is a natural light beam pointing up at the Milky Way. There is just so much to like about this.

Yeah, as Alan referred to, 1200 pix is the widest/tallest an image can be or it will be resized down to 1200 pix if you post something larger, so the size of this isn't an issue. If you do post something larger then 1200 and it resizes it also will soften it a bit unfortunately, so it's best to keep them to 1200 or smaller.

 

[Nightscapades]

Beautiful. Thanks for the exposure info although you mention 15 seconds and then 8 seconds below. I am still trying to learn how to take shots like this.

Thank you for your compliment, Alan, and for pointing out my contradictory shooting information. The exposures were 15 seconds each and I have now corrected my rambling description. I am happy to point you to some tutorials that I found helpful in learning how to shoot nightscape panoramas.

 

[Nightscapades]

This is so cool Doug! It's amazing it's like there is a natural light beam pointing up at the Milky Way. There is just so much to like about this.

Yeah, as Alan referred to, 1200 pix is the widest/tallest an image can be or it will be resized down to 1200 pix if you post something larger, so the size of this isn't an issue. If you do post something larger then 1200 and it resizes it also will soften it a bit unfortunately, so it's best to keep them to 1200 or smaller.

Thanks for your compliment also, Jim. The Zodiacal Light was something I'd read about when I got interested in astronomy in the late 70s but I'd not seen nor photographed it until about two years ago. You tend to be able to see it in the Northern Hemisphere before sunrise during the August-October period, and after sunset during February-April. Being in the southern half of the planet, we see it after sunset during August-October.

Thank you for the info about image sizes. I couldn't for the life of me find the page again about how to post, but winged it by reverse-engineering my previous post. Can you point me to that page and info about image sizes, etc, please?

 

[Kyle Jones]

Very nice. Good rendering on the Milky way and Venus does add to the composition.

 

[Nightscapades]

Very nice. Good rendering on the Milky way and Venus does add to the composition.

Thanks so much, Kyle. I appreciate your encouraging comments.

 

[JimFox]

Hey Doug,

All of that info on how to post is listed at the top of every forum. There are 2 helpfiles, a Guidelines post and a How to Post Photos post.

Here is the link to it for Posting Photos in the Landscape forum:
http://focalworld.com/index.php?threads/how-to-upload-photos.413/

And the Guidelines for the Landscape Forum:
http://focalworld.com/index.php?threads/landscape-forum-guidelines.62/

The tutorial you mentioned to Kyle for doing pano's, for sure link that, it would be awesome to see. I rarely do pano's at night because especially if the Milky Way is involved they never turned out that good usually.

 

[Bob Denton]

''This is great!

 

[Ben Egbert]

This is simply great

 

[Tom Narwid]

Yalwal Camping Area, New South Wales, Australia.
Despite having planned to get to this spot when Venus was higher in the sky, I ended up arriving just as the “evening star” was close to the horizon. By the time I lined up my camera and tripod to shoot this vertical panorama, the trees on the distant ridge were partly hiding Venus from my view. I grabbed the rig and stepped back and up onto the little rise that I was parked on, getting Venus at almost the right spot. I had to repeat this a couple of times before getting into a position that let me catch Venus just scraping the treetops, as you see here.

Midway between where Venus seems to be resting, and the dense core of the Milky Way, you can see Jupiter glowing almost as brightly as Venus itself. Reaching up from Venus, past Jupiter and fading out before the Milky Way’s dust lanes you can see a bright glowing band, known as the Zodiacal Light. Also known as the "false dawn", this astronomical feature is visible each year around the time of the equinoxes.

What you can’t see is how much the wind was blowing on this night. I’m surprised that the camera didn’t wobble during the 15 seconds that the shutter was open for each of the eight photos in the panorama.

I shot each of those eight photos with a Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, a Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 lens @ f/2.4, exposed for 15 seconds @ ISO 6400.

Love it. You south of the equator have a great night sky

 

[Panther]

Always Love Astro Shots and this one really has so many wonderful things to see and take in.

I agree about the Soft Light leading our Eyes up into the Subject. Very Nicely Done !!!

Take Care,

Craig

 

[Alisa]

Yalwal Camping Area, New South Wales, Australia.
Despite having planned to get to this spot when Venus was higher in the sky, I ended up arriving just as the “evening star” was close to the horizon. By the time I lined up my camera and tripod to shoot this vertical panorama, the trees on the distant ridge were partly hiding Venus from my view. I grabbed the rig and stepped back and up onto the little rise that I was parked on, getting Venus at almost the right spot. I had to repeat this a couple of times before getting into a position that let me catch Venus just scraping the treetops, as you see here.

Midway between where Venus seems to be resting, and the dense core of the Milky Way, you can see Jupiter glowing almost as brightly as Venus itself. Reaching up from Venus, past Jupiter and fading out before the Milky Way’s dust lanes you can see a bright glowing band, known as the Zodiacal Light. Also known as the "false dawn", this astronomical feature is visible each year around the time of the equinoxes.

What you can’t see is how much the wind was blowing on this night. I’m surprised that the camera didn’t wobble during the 15 seconds that the shutter was open for each of the eight photos in the panorama.

I shot each of those eight photos with a Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, a Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 lens @ f/2.4, exposed for 15 seconds @ ISO 6400.

Wow this what an awesome capture!!