Zolt Levay
About the Image(s)
This night-sky landscape was taken in late March before sunrise at Yellowwood Lake in Brown County, Indiana. This is a favorite spot not too far from home that is far enough from any towns so the sky is reasonably dark and the Milky Way is visible on clear, moonless nights in spring and summer. There was a breeze but the long exposures blurred out the ripples in the water and allowed the stars’ reflections to be visible. The glow on the horizon is from Louisville, Kentucky, the only major city in that direction, but some 100 miles away.
This is a panorama stitched from five vertical frames taken with a Nikon D850 DSLR and Nikon 20mm f/1.8 lens. Exposure for all frames was 10 sec., f/2, ISO 2500. The frames were post-processed and merged in Adobe Lightroom. The three morning planets are visible to the right of the trees on the left: Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars.
This round’s discussion is now closed!
5 comments posted
  Posted: 05/09/2020 11:36:36
For me, there are two things that might make this image even stronger. First, the reflections of the stars are a bit distracting to me right now because they appear brighter than the stars in the sky (probably because the moving water has spread them out and made them larger). They are also set against a darker background than the sky and there aren't that many of them - they almost look like big dust spots. The second thing is that my eye is drawn to the light pollution on the horizon more than the milky way - I think this is partly because it is brighter, and partly because the yellow color is a stronger complement to the blue sky.
I played around as follows. I cloned out the reflected stars and then brought them back in a little so they are more diffuse reflections. Then adjusted the tone and saturation of the light pollution to be more consistent with the pinks of the milky way. I saturated the milky way a bit more to further enhance it as the center of interest, and then I cropped the bottom which seemed very dark.
Just some thoughts. It is a nice image either way.
  Posted: 05/09/2020 14:17:26
(Group 87)