A loop of the San Rafael River is apparent in the foreground, and that Milky Way dominates the sky

Bob Maynard and I had been out shooting star shots for three consecutive nights, and all three had clear skies. This night was the best, and I noted that there were no insects. So I simply spread out a ground cloth, then a therma-rest, then my sleeping bag and slept under the stars.. Every time I rolled over I enjoyed that magnificent starry sky.

The landscape was photographed during the Blue Hour--3 exposures, stacked in Photoshop. About 40 star shots were taken and rotated with starry landscape stacker. Land and sky composites were joined in photoshop.

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The San Rafael River is a tributary to the Green River, only 90 miles long. But its scenery is spectacular. It carved the Little Grand Canyon and two enormous slot canyons, Upper Black Box and Lower Black Box. This scene is in the Mexican Mountain Wilderness.

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A super moon is closer to earth than average, making it 30% brighter and 14% larger. This year the Harvest Moon was eclipsed, with up to 8% of the surface of the moon in the shadow of earth.

Six bracketed shots were aligned and stacked in photoshop. Noise was reduced with Topaz DeNoise AI.

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The Mexican Mountain Wilderness on the San Rafael Swell in Utah has remarkable, rugged and wild scenery. Window Blind Peak (left) and Assembly Hall Peak seem to be lit by the Milky Way at the edge of the Wilderness Area.

Starry Sky Stacker rotated 17 star shots for the composite of the sky and 5 photos of the landscape were stacked for a composite of the landscape. The composites were assembled to a single frame in Photoshop.

Tags:   astrophotography Window Blind Peak Assembly Hall Peak Milky Way Starry Sky Mexican Mountain Wilderness San Rafael Swell

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The Eagle Nebula (Messier 16, also the Star Queen Nebula) is in the constellation Serpens, is about 5,700 light years away. It attracts interest because it contains several areas of gas and dust in which stars are being born. It was introduced to the lay public (me included) by the Hubble's Space Telescopes of the area that has come to be known as the Pillars of Creation, an active area of star formation.

I gathered 25 exposures, each 60 seconds long, f 8.0, ISO 1600, 380mm from a site at 7,350 feet elevation west of Boulder, CO. The exposures were composited in Starry Sky Stacker and processed the composite in Photoshop.

My previous post shows this nebula but was taken at 100 mm to show the area of the Milky Way where the nebula can be seen.

Tags:   astrophotography Eagle Nebula

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