West desert milky way.

[Ben Egbert]

I drove out to Utah's west desert which is south of Salt Lake salt flats and near the Nevada Border. The old Pony Express route takes you to the heart of it. My main purpose was to get some wild horses which I did and will show later. But it's also a fairly good Milky Way location. So I dusted off my MW technique and got this image. The was taken before moonrise and I had hoped to use moonrise to illuminate the ground, but the moon rose directly into the middle of my shot so I took shots but did not use them. This is one image with the ground layer brought up in post processing.

RF15-35 f2.8 at 15 mm f2.8 30 seconds ISO3200;

 

[AlanLichty]

I like it without the moonlit ground layer. Looks nice.

 

[JimFox]

This looks great Ben! I think you did really well. You could crop some off the bottom, but that's it. I think the amount of light on the bottom looks great. The way the Milky Way is rising in relation to the peaks in the background is perfect. Did it come up about where you thought the Milky Way would rise?

And I totally forgot to mention that when the moon did rise it would be right in shot. Thats where shooting the Milky Way on the other side of the new moon is beneficial.

 

[JimFox]

Congrats on the Daily Featured Photo Ben!

@Ben Egbert

 

[Ben Egbert]

Thanks for the feature, Jim, I really appreciate that.

I had trouble getting Sky Guide and PhotoPills working that way I remember. I also made the mistake of using the 25th for my date when it was actually the 26th when I rook it. This is a big change for the moon.

But I had the position pretty well figured out.

The light on the bottom looks fine here, but would look better at a lower ISO in a print.

 

[Douglas Sherman]

Lovely image, Ben and congratulations on the Daily Featured Post.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Nice work here Ben. Congrats on the feature.

 

[John Holbrook]

Beautiful image of the Milky Way—glad you decided to “hold your horses” for a later date—so could we see this now!

 

[Timmeh]

I like the balance between the Milky Way and the pools. The touch of color from the moonrise works well. Did you take a 2 minute exposure at ISO 800 for the ground?

 

[Ben Egbert]

I like the balance between the Milky Way and the pools. The touch of color from the moonrise works well. Did you take a 2 minute exposure at ISO 800 for the ground?

I took longer exposures of the ground but the focus was off

 

[Kyle Jones]

If you have multiple exposures with the same settings you can average them to reduce noise too.

Nice job with this one. I think you nailed the processing in the sky. The stars look great.

 

[Ben Egbert]

If you have multiple exposures with the same settings you can average them to reduce noise too.

Nice job with this one. I think you nailed the processing in the sky. The stars look great.

Thanks Kyle, I did take multiple exposures but I must have bumped the focus. I need to find a way to lock focus after I once have it.