Swans on Mississippi
The evening of July 29th presented an extremely clear evening, cool air and 2 meteor showers coming from the east. A friend of mine has a resort on Kitchi Lake east of Bemidji. From the resorts point of view, the Milky Way passes directly over the lake, aligning with the docks shortly after midnight. She was kind enough to let me shut the lights off they have near the shore to eliminate light pollution and try my hand at a new location for astrophotography.
The air was cool, dipping in the mid 40s, which was nice as it kept the bugs at bay. The wind was calm, keeping the wave action to a minimum on the lake, which helped limit the motion of boats tied to the docks. I took a long exposure for the sky, and used a headlamp to light the docks and boats.
2 very similar images, simply turned the camera between exposures. Both were f/2.8, 20 seconds @ ISO6400. While the shutter was opened, I used a headlamp to light the docks and boats.
While I was waiting for the Milky way to line up in the center of the docks, I pulled out the 24 TSE lens and took a series of 3 images, with the idea of stitching them into 1 long panoramic image. I was not sure how these would merge being the raw image did not have this level of detail, but the bright stars must have been enough, as the stitch went fairly easy. Processed in Lightroom to pull the detail, Photoshop and Topaz plug-ins to pull color, contrast and noise reduction. This was my first attempt at a image of just the Milky Way.
The change in color is caused by the light pollution on the horizon, but I like the transition from warmth to cool color.
3 images, all the same exposure – f/3.5, 15 seconds @ ISO6400.
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Amazing photos, well done.