Alpstein Milky Way - a photo on Flickriver

Alpstein Milky Way

            Living in the middle of Europe also means suffering a lot of light pollution, which definitely is not what you want when trying to capture the Milky Way.

Living in Switzerland mitigates the problem a bit, as you can find some reasonably dark skies in the mountains. However, in these latitudes, you need a flat horizon to capture the most interesting core-part of our home galaxy. Therefore, you have to climb those mountains. 

As it is definitely not a good idea to descend a steep mountain trail in the middle of the night, you have but two options: bivouac or find a conveniently located mountain hut or guesthouse.

Fortunately, there are several such guesthouses in the Alpstein Mountains and one of them is positioned perfectly on top of mount Schaefler. From Ebenalp, where you can ride by cable car, a one-hour hike can reach it.

Of course, this convenience comes at a price: So close to civilization there still is considerable light pollution, especially from the Rhein Valley. The night I took this picture, it was even more disturbing due to some low clouds that reflected the light and caused the orange glow in the lower left corner of the image.

However, the foreground profited from this, as it does not appear as pitch black is it would have under perfect sky conditions and the Alpstein peaks are silhouetted nicely against this orange glow.

Canon EOS 7d mark ll
Samyang 10mm f/2.8 @ f/2.8
iOptron Skytracker
2 x 180s @ ISO 3200 tracked for the sky / fixed for the foreground

Taken on: July 16, 2015

Tags:

Alpstein

Appenzell

Astronomy

Astrophotography

Landscape

Long Exposure

Canon

Canon EOS 7D mk ll

iOptron

skytracker

Nightscape

Night

Samyang

Samyang 10mm f/2.8 ED AS NCS CS

Switzerland

Schweiz

Swiss@Night

Swiss

Schäfler

Astro

Milchstrasse « less

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