Galactic Wing - a photo on Flickriver

Galactic Wing

            With one end standing on a hoodoo-like base, the fragile capstone of this stone wing extends more than ten feet into nothingness, seemingly defying gravity. No wonder the structure is nicknamed the "King of Wings".

I have tried to photograph the King several times, but my attempts were always thwarted by clouds.

In May, I was in the area again, and the weather forecast, once more, wasn't very promising, with thunderstorms and high cirrus clouds.

As I explored the site in the late afternoon, the weather gods spared me from getting soaked, although many showers were falling around me. 

During dusk, I installed some low-level lighting, and after nightfall, I shot a Cygnus composition. After this successful start, the predicted high cirrus clouds rolled in, blurring the stars and amplifying the light pollution from Farmington, about 40 miles away.

After capturing the foreground of this panorama, the sky shots for the Milky Way arc proved to be unusable, despite the sky looking more or less clear to the naked eye. I considered calling it a night but decided to wait a bit, hoping the thin clouds would soon clear again.

I took test shots every 10 minutes for about 2 hours but saw no improvement. Then, when I had almost given up hope, I noticed that the Milky Way core had miraculously cleared, and I immediately began shooting my sky panorama. As I worked my way along the Milky Way arc, the clearing grew and followed my camera. About halfway through the panorama, some thick clouds appeared in the west. Luckily, I was able to finish the image with only the last frames impacted by the clouds, which nicely match the glow from the light hidden among the rocks on the far left.

EXIF 
Canon EOS-R, astro-modified by Richard Galli from EOS 4Astro 
Sigma 28mm f/1.4 ART
IDAS NBZ filter 
iOptron SkyTracker Pro 
Low Level Lighting 

Foreground: 
Focus stacked panorama of 9 panels, each 5x 30s @ ISO3200

Sky:
Panorama of 9 panels, each a stack of 5x 45s @ ISO1600, unfiltered & 3x 105s @ ISO6400, filtered
   

Taken on: May 5, 2024

Tags:

New Mexico

Stone Wing

Milky Way

Astrophotography

Nightscape

Starscape

Long Exposure

Night

Landscape

Low Level Lighting « less

Sets appears in: • Nachtlandschaft • Panoramas more » • Milky Way • Landscape « less

Groups appears in: • After Dark - Night Photography • Into the Night Photography more » • Apod GrAG Submission • APOD by Astronomia.com Submissions « less

Stats: 3,565 views / 20 comments

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