Brad Ashbrook
May 2022 - SpaceX Launch
Original
About the Image(s)
We went camping for nights last week at state park about 2 hours from where we live in Florida. It is a pretty dark spot where you can view the Milky Way. The landscape is limited but a great place to relax and view the stars. During the second day one of the camp hosts stopped by and let us know that there was going to be a SpaceX launch at 3:57 in the morning. I was already planning to be up taking pictures, so this was perfect. Fortunately I had an app on my phone that let me know which direction to face when it launched. I had seen other photographs and knew to set my exposure from 1-2 minutes. I split it at 91 seconds, f2.8, ISO 800 with a Sigma 35mm ART on my Sony a9. There was some basic raw adjustments, into PS for a big dust spot and a curve adjustment for additional contrast and the square crop. Looks like I also caught a satellite in the upper left. Another interesting note, I posted this on Single Exposure Milky Way group on Facebook and 2 people asked why there was no trailing or not enough trailing (one accused me of a composite). There is definitely trailing of the stars due to the long exposure in the upper right. Around the top left of the photo is Polaris and the trailing is around with more significant trailing farther out.
This round’s discussion is now closed!
7 comments posted
The long exposure has allowed us to see the trail of the climbing rocket and the night sky. It was short enough to allow small star trails but they were short enough not to attract attention. Well done, an interesting piece of photography. Posted: 05/09/2022 06:05:45
Often star trails and night skies are lacking foreground interest. You nailed it. The clarity of the trees and the trail is perfect.
So glad you were able to take advantage of this event. And thank you for sharing with us.
Hope you can enter this into some highly acclaimed event and win. Posted: 05/16/2022 17:06:13