Wolfe Ranch By Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Still Standing After All This Time... This Is The Wolfe Ranch

Cyclops Arch by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website Instagram Facebook Panorama of 11 vertical images Nikon 810A, 14-24mm lens, 16 mm, f 2.8, 25 sec, ISO 10,000, This is a panorama of Cyclops Arch in the Alabama Hills of California. I had been there in August before, and the Milky Way was better centered over the arch. This trip was in June, and it was harder than I expected to get the core centered over the arch. So we "resorted" to placing the stone arch under the arch of the MW. It worked out better than expected. There is a small light panel under the arch with the light damped down very low. There is another light panel off to my left. For a tutorial on this kind of lighting (LLL) see lowlevellighting.org. For more images like this please take a look at my website here . Thanks for all the kind support! Hope you enjoy! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family. Cheers, Wayne

A Whale of a View by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook This is an arch called “Eye of the Whale” in Arches National Park. It is one of the more obscure and less visited arches. You have to take a dirt road for a couple of miles, or several kms, to get to the arch. The road alternates with rocky areas and deep sand, so a high clearance 4WD vehicle is required. It’s a fun spot off the beaten path. This is a panorama of 6 vertical images taken with a Sigma 14 mm f/1.8 lens at f 2.8, 30 sec, and ISO 12,800, with a Nikon 850 camera. The Arch is deeper than most, almost like a short tunnel. My first thought when hearing the name was “why would someone name an arch that”? Anyway, when you approach the arch from the path it really doses look like a giant eye, and even photos from inside the arch look like you are viewing from inside a giant eye. Hope you enjoy! Thanks for all the kind support over the last year, it is much appreciated! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family!

Reflections by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Reflections: The Greater and Lesser Magellanic Clouds are reflected in the shallow waters of the Great Barrier Island in New Zealand. The Magellanic Clouds are irregular dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way. They do have a “bar” of stars or brightness centrally but are not classic spiral galaxies. Observation and theoretical evidence suggests that the clouds have been greatly distorted by tidal interactions with the Milky Way as they travel close to it (Astronomy.com). ___________________________________________ As an observer from the Northern Hemisphere it was fun to see the features of the Southern Hemisphere sky, like the Magellanic Clouds. These lie near the “southern arm” of the Milky Way and are not visible in the Northern Hemisphere. ___________________________________________ Usually we just have to coordinate the position on the Milky Way, the moon cycles, landscape location, and weather to get the desired shot. Here there was one more factors, the tides, which I was not used to considering. At low tide there is a very thin layer of water along the shore which was perfect for capturing reflections. Luckily this occurred around 1 - 2 a.m. when the stars were in excellent position. Stacked image, 14-24 mm lens, 14 mm, f/2.8, 20 sec., ISO 12,800. ___________________________________________ If you want an excellent guide to good shooting spots on the Great Barrier Island contact Carol @darkskysanctuary on IG.

To Walk a Pale Land by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook To Walk A Pale Land. Part of a series from the New Mexico Badlands. This is a panorama of 9 vertical shots taken at 14 mm with a 14-24 mm lens, f/2.8, ISO 12,800. I was about 6-8 feet from the larger hoodoos on the sides, very close. There was considerable distortion in the individual photos from being so close, but the combined photos in the panorama eliminated the distortion remarkably well. People frequently ask me about nodal rails and parallax. The current versions of Lightroom and Photoshop do remarkably well at eliminating parallax error in the photos. I do have a nodal rail and take as many panoramas as I can manage, but I do not bother with the nodal rail. I do not use it, and have never had an issue with parallax preventing stitching or distorting the image. In this image I was trying it o catch the rising MW between the hoodoos. Taken in May 2018. There are no paths in the New Mexico Badlands, and multiple places you can visit. If you want guidance consider contacting Kialo Winters @chacorunner, at Navajo Tours USA, highly recommend! Thanks for all the kind support over the last year, it is much appreciated! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family!

Canyonlands National Park by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Panorama Foreground: 16 frames, 30 sec., f/2.5, ISO 2000 (twilight) Sky: 16 frames, 4 exposures each, stacked, f/1.8, 10 sec., ISO 500: All at 35 mm Canyonlands National Park. Panorama with the foreground and sky acquired separately as above. Thanks for looking! Wayne

Nighttime with the Gods by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This was taken in the Valley of the Gods in Utah, USA. This is one of those "gems" that not many people visit, and is not widely known. This area is usually bypassed for the more famous Monument Valley. This valley lies just north of Monument Valley and contains similar but somewhat smaller isolated buttes and mesas. This valley is not owned by the Navajos and there are no restrictions on traveling there at night. It lies just north of the town of Mexican Hat, Utah. The area has been used to film several Western Movies as well as 2 Dr. Who shows. The formations are still quite large and consist of red sandstone. The Andromeda Galaxy is just on the edge of the horizon on the bottom left. For perspective there is a car (SUV) silhouetted along the horizon on the bottom left also. To the best of my knowledge the butte is called "Castle Butte". This image is a series of vertical images combined in Photoshop, taken with a Canon 6D camera and Rokinon 24 f 1.4mm lens at f1.4, 20 sec., and ISO 6400. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Your time, faves, and comments are much appreciated! Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog

Questions and Answers

Processing Airglow

People have asked me a number of questions about equipment, issues, and technique in Nightscape or Landscape Astrophotography. Since many of these questions are recurring, I am going to post the questions and answers here. I’ll answer your questions to the best of my ability!

Q: Very nice panoramic in a wonderful place. One question Wayne, always in your picture I'm looking the airglow, Are you lucking or a special technique? ;-), thanks, Regards.

A: Thanks for looking Gabriel. The answer is both, sometimes lucky, and sometimes processing technique. There is frequently some degree of airglow present, but not always. If the airglow is present then the processing workflow I use does enhance it along with the light pollution. Lots of people try to get rid of the airglow and make the skies more uniform in color to meet their own and others expectations about the night sky. There are actions and workflows to get rid of these colors. Instead I go the opposite direction and enhance them to some degree if they are present. I start in Lightroom and then export to Photoshop. If you make the sky blue from the outset in Lightroom, it covers up most of the airglow and decreases light pollution to some degree. It can also make the airglow and light pollution a less pleasing color. If you initially make the darkest part of the sky a neutral "greyish" in Lightroom it will bring out more colors in the sky near the horizon later in processing. The subtle colors are less suppressed, and when you make the darkest sky more neutral it actually makes the colors of light pollution and airglow a more pleasing color and less of a "ugly" color. I export to photoshop and increase contrast in the sky in curves, and later make the sky bluer at the end. I describe the process here: 

http://lightcrafter.smugmug.com/About-Nightscapes

Recapture Pocket Panorama by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Recapture Pocket is an area on hoodoos near Bluff, Utah. There are 2 fields of hoodoos here. I call this Hoodoo Arch because it is an arch that is mostly just 2 connected hoodoos. There is Low Level Lighting (LLL) with a Gaol Zero Micro Lantern behind the arch and an LED Light Panel on a tripod about 50 meters behind me and to the right. Panorama: 11 images, 20 mm, f 2.0, 20 sec., ISO 6400, Nikon 810A Hope you enjoy! For more images like this please take a look at Wayne Pinkston Photography . Thanks for all the kind support over the last year, it is much appreciated! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family!

Teardrop Arch, Monument Valley by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website Instagram Faceb ook Teardrop Arch in Monument Valley. Funny story showing how blind I can be. My guide in Monument Valley was Quanah Parker, and he suggested going to Teardrop Arch. I had 'never' seen or heard of it, but his suggestions were always good, so I agreed, and we had a fabulous night shooting this Arch, and some adjacent sites. I got back to the motel in the early morning, and there was a 36 inch, 1 meter photo of this same arch over the bed. I had been looking at it the better part of a week and had no clue what I was looking at. Wonder what I'm missing out in the open, lol. Shot at 14 mm, f 2.8, 25 sec., ISO 8000. Lighting with Low Level Lighting, www.lowlevellighting.org You need a local guide to take might tours in MV. If you want an excellent guide for night photography in Monument Valley, google Majestic Monument Valley Tours, contact them, and schedule a night tour with Quanah Parker. For more images like this please take a look at Wayne Pinkston Photography . Thanks for all the kind support! Hope you enjoy! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family. It's a pleasure to post here.

Bell Tower by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook This one’s a bit abstract. We are looking up at the night sky and Milky Way in a bell tower of an old abandoned Cathedral in Madagascar. There is Low Level Lighting (LLL). The light inside the tower was a Goal Zero Micro Lantern, an omnidirectional light. The light outside was a Cineroid LED light panel set on 4000K and turned to low. ___________________________________________ There is a very large window in the front of the bell tower in the shape of a cross. Most of the glass has been broken out. ___________________________________________ There are 19 images stacked in Starry Landscape Stacker. 14-24 mm lens, 14 mm, 15 sec., f/2.8, ISO 12,800. Thanks for looking, Wayne