McGown Peak Milky Way
Wow, where to begin with such an incredible weekend, a short getaway to the family cabin near Stanley, Idaho turned out to be the greatest personal Milky Way imaging experience of my life. Had some lousy weather the first day or so, but it cleared up and it seemed like every location I chose to shoot at turned out to be a home-run. The first night of shooting I went to Stanley Lake, I shot there last year but did not time it right and the core had not risen high enough. This year I scouted several locations around the lake and the meadows below McGown Peak to create better compositions. This one turned out to be my favorite.
9 exposures went into this shot, 6 for the sky and 3 for the foreground, all shot back to back with my Nikon D800E and Sigma Art 50mm f1.4 lens on a Sky Watcher Star Adventurer tracking mount. Sky shots are 4 minute exposures at ISO 800 and f2.8, foreground shots are 4 minute exposures at ISO 1600 and f2. Many more to come, including the best shot I've ever put together.
