On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good Morning All,
On The Road and In Your Backyard is a weekday feature spotlighting reader submissions. From the exotic to the familiar, please share your part of the world, whether you’re traveling or just in your locality. Share some photos and a narrative, let us see through your pictures and words. We’re so lucky each and every day to see and appreciate the world around us!
Submissions from commenters are welcome at tools.balloon-juice.com
Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!
Prepare for some amazement today!
Today, pictures from valued commenter ?BillinGlendaleCA.
How do you spend hours in a dark place and only take 3 pictures? Easy if you’re trying to take certain types of photos of our skies. These photos and video(if I can get the links to work, otherwise I’ll add them to the comments) were taken at three locations I’ve been to before(Twin Bush, Lockwood Valley, and Red Rock), but with a different emphasis this time out. I wanted to concentrate on getting a timelapse of the Milky Way rising(I originally wanted to do it in conjunction with the sunrise, but the weather had other ideas), star trails, and close-ups of the nebula that are in the “summer” Milky Way.
Taken on 2019-04-27 00:00:00
Lockwood Valley, CA
Star trails are an attractive and easy shot to make; they to take a bit of time to take though. You set up a camera pointed at the sky and take a long(the longer the better) shot or series of shots of the sky(with multiple shots you have to combine them in Photoshop). This shot is pointed north at Polaris over Mt. Pinos(last seen in our visit to the Carrizo Plain). This shot is not quite perfect, someone forgot to check to make sure his camera’s battery was fully charged before leaving home and also forgot to pack an extra battery(it was in the IR camera bag), so the series of shots was only about 40 minutes. I also didn’t capture enough of the foreground to get the light painting I was doing(I had to use my NX1 to do the foreground shot).
Taken on 2019-05-03 00:00:00
Red Rock State Park, Cantil, CA
After the previous week’s unfortunate battery incident, I traveled to Red Rock and shot star trails(again pointed at Polaris) against the Red Cliffs. I didn’t use a foreground shot here since once I’d processed the sky shot, I didn’t think I really needed one. I used the stacking software(Sequator) that I used for capturing nebula and the Red Cliffs were getting enough cumulative light from the passing cars to get uniformly lit. This exposure was a series of 30 second exposures over 90 minutes.
Taken on 2019-04-13 00:00:00
Twin Bush, Mugu State Park, California
When you see a visible light photo of the Milky Way, you’ll notice that the galactic center has a dark area that runs though it, this is known as the great rift. It’s a cloud of dust that’s between us and the galactic center of our galaxy. In front of that dust cloud we can see some stars and nebula, which you can pretty clearly see in any Milky Way photo. The Lagoon Nebula is pretty prominent, showing up as a small pink or magenta area in the Great Rift. Here’s a close-up of Lagoon with the smaller Trifed Nebula just above it. You can see part of the galactic center at the bottom of the photo as well. This was taken with the startracker,; 40, 30 second exposures taken at 200mm.
Taken on 2019-03-30 00:00:00
Twin Bush, Mugu State Park, California
While it’s not optimal to attempt to photograph the Milky Way with the moon in the sky, it can be done and a pleasing shot can be had. Here’s the rising crescent moon rising and reflected off the Pacific with the Milky Way to the right.
Taken on Various
Twin Bush, Mugu & Red Rock State Parks, California
Here’s a link(if it works) to two time lapses of the Milky Way rising. The first was shot in Lockwood Valley with a one minute interval between 25 second shots(the interval was too long). The second was shot at Red Rock with at 15 second shot(too short) and a 5 second interval.
https://www.billinglendaleca.com/Galleries/Time-Lapse/i-26zXrLG
Thank you so much ?BillinGlendaleCA, do send us more when you can.
Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.
One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email
Baud
Astronomical shots make all our problems seem small.
Mary G
Love the star trails. Great shots, Bill.
Rob
The first two photos are absolutely lovely.
arrieve
Wonderful as always, Bill. I am always amazed by our beautiful universe and grateful to those who show it to us.
?BillinGlendaleCA
To make getting to the time lapses easier, Milky Way Time Lapse.
@Baud: Yeah, except for the weather….can’t get these shots with cloud cover.
@Mary G:
@Rob: Thanks. Star trails are really easy to do, but just take a lot of time.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@arrieve: Thanks. I look at the Astronomy Pic of the Day, every day. This one from Monday is interesting.
HinTN
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I really like the first for the trails (I’m immediately heading the song “Starry Night” and thinking of Vincent) but the second with the foreground is spectacular.
WOW
?BillinGlendaleCA
@HinTN: The first was supposed to have more of a foreground, but I didn’t point the camera down far enough, but the silhouette of Mt. Pinos worked well anyway.
ETA: It’s snowing up on the Mt. Pinos right now and on the route up to where I took that photo.
arrieve
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I love Astronomy Picture of the Day! I share a lot of those pictures on my own blog. I especially love the Cassini pictures of Saturn.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Oh wow. Those are amazing.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@arrieve: Well, I submitted these shots on Monday morning and then Monday night I look at APoD and there’s the same shot as my #3.
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Thanks, one of the nice things about having two cameras now is I can just set up the old one to do star trails while I do other stuff with my main camera(as long as remember to bring it with a fully charged battery).
J R in WV
Love the nebula photo the most. Maybe I’ve just seen to many star trails
Great stuff!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@J R in WV: Thanks, I’ve got to try the nebula from a darker spot; maybe I’ll get something with a bit more definition in the gas clouds like the APoD. I think the only way to make star trails somewhat interesting is the foreground, there’s a lot out there since they’re quite easy to shoot.
ETA: A photo processing app that you might look at(since you use Linux) is Darktable.
Steve in the ATL
I love your photos, Bill, but I feel like I don’t get the full experience because I get drug tested for my job.
Mr. Prosser
The moon and Milky Way is such a fine photo, perfect combination.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: Heh, I do this completely sober.
@Mr. Prosser: They are, but most photographers seem to think the only time you can shoot the Milky Way is when the moon isn’t in the sky. If we get some clear weather here, I may try again.
Just One More Canuck
gorgeous pictures, Bill
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Just One More Canuck: Thanks.
stinger
Great pics, as always. I love the star trails, and the nebulae, but the rising moon shining across the water, with the Milky Way — wow.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@stinger: Thanks, the rising moon was a challenge. The Milky Way part was easy, just shoot it with the star tracker, then shooting the foreground. But the moon doesn’t move(at least to a ground observer) the same as the stars and I had to get it to match up the reflection on the water.
Hope y’all are following the link to the time lapses.
CaseyL
Oh, those are SO gorgeous. I love seeing the cosmos laid out in all its splendor!
TaMara (HFG)
Love these.
JPL
What great pictures. Thanks Bill. You should submit some of your flower pictures also.
pat
I am directionally challenged and trying to figure out how the moon rises over the Pacific….
Jerzy Russian
@pat: The coast runs nearly east-west there. The galactic center, which is towards the south, is to the right in the picture. The moon is to the left, which would be to the east. Also the moon is currently south of the celestial equator, so it rises a bit south of east.
pat
@pat:
Forgot to say, I love the pictures. The red cliffs in the foreground…. Wow!
J R in WV
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Thanks for the suggestion.
Lately I’m using Gnu Image Manipulation Program, and … hmm, something else for RAW processing into JPGs. Mostly all I do is tinker with contrast, cropping and resizing for Web display. Nothing like what you have control of! Lots to learn!
ETA: Looks quite different, interesting, thanks again!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@CaseyL: Thanks, hopefully I’ll shoot some more when the weather clears. I’ve got some ideas on some new places.
@TaMara (HFG): Thanks.
@JPL: I’ve got some flower pics from The Huntington, I’ll also send AL some pics from “garden” for the Sunday thing.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@pat:
@Jerzy Russian: Jerzy’s right, the coast runs pretty much east-west from Pt. Conception(west of Santa Barbara) to Santa Monica. That shot was taken just east of Oxnard.
@pat: The Red Cliffs are a pretty good foreground, unfortunately they don’t work as a foreground for the Milky Way since they’re to the north(unless I do some Photoshop magic).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@J R in WV: The first thing I do with all my shots is bump highlights down to it’s minimum and then increase them as needed. This gives you a lot more color and definition in the sky, even if it’s cloudy. What drives me over the edge is seeing a photo with a blown out sky.
Kenneth Kohl
Simply astonishing, BiG, thank you. This is, indeed, an art form.
pat
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Thanks for the explanation. I figured it must be something like that. Still trying to picture it…