Stunning and beautiful photo...

I couldn't believe that this was a photo and not a painting, and taken here on Earth to boot....

here

Re: Heart stoppingly beautiful photo...

That is cool!

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The ultra clear night sky is the one thing I miss about living in the SW at high altitude.

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Dam, that is magnificent.

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Beautiful. Thanks for sharing that.

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Very nice...thanks for the link.

Wow that is freakin' amazing! I wish I knew how to take pictures like that.
Can someone who knows more about photography explain that? Is is just that leaving the shutter open for a long period of time alows all that light from the galaxy to show up?
And how much cash do I have to throw down to get a camera capable of that :shrug:

Very cool exposure image. I like how the flashlight was used to briefly light the cave to make it visible.

Chuck289 said:

Is is just that leaving the shutter open for a long period of time allows all that light from the galaxy to show up?

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Sure, they used a flashlight! Not kidding.

Explanation: Is there any place in the world you could see a real sight like this? Yes. Pictured above is single exposure image spectacular near, far, and in between. Diving into the Earth far in the distance is part of the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy, taken with a long duration exposure. Much closer, the planet Jupiter is visible as the bright point just to band's left. Closer still are picturesque buttes and mesas of the Canyonlands National Park in Utah, USA, lit by a crescent moon. In the foreground is a cave housing a stone circle of unknown origin named False Kiva. The cave was briefly lit by flashlight during the long exposure. Astrophotographer Wally Pacholka reports that getting to the cave to take this image was no easy trek. Also, mountain lions were a concern while waiting alone in the dark for just the right exposure.

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Nice find, Nerdgineer.

:twothumbs

_

What an amazingly beautiful image. I've seen some awesome night skies in the southwest, but this one takes the cake! :twothumbs

hey next time you come shining flashlights in my backyard and wake me up call and make an appointment first will ya?? just kidding.
but I do wish I could live there all the time. imagine that.
nice pic.
I have to go back and read about how he got to that spot.

(you don't supose it's in foreclosure....?)

Very cool photograph, thanks for sharing.

I reviewed this picture with an amateur astronomer friend of mine, whose initial reaction was "no way..".

After some thought, he is of the opinion that for this picture to indeed be taken from one exposure, it would have to have been done in 2 steps. The photographer would have had to make a mask of the sky view only as seen from inside the cave. He would then have had to make a long time exposure of the sky from outside somewhere, using a clock drive. Then he would have had to quickly go into the cave and make a short (minute?) exposure from inside the cave with the mask removed, perfectly indexed to the camera's last sky view from the outside time exposure, and make the move fast so the outside exposure of the sky would align with the view from inside the cave. He would have had to have had two perfectly aligned platforms preset for his one camera and exposure.

Otherwise, he doesn't think it's possible to do this with one exposure only from inside the cave. A very impressive piece of work.

He posted how he made the exposure on the site. Long exposure with a brief period of shining a light around the cave so it would show up.

I dunno personally. Still a nice image.

With the mention of the tracking system by nerdgineer it does make me wonder. Long exposures of stars on a typical tripod would have them streaking across the sky as the earth turned. The tracking system is motorized so it slowly turns, adjusting the angle of the camera in time with the earths rotation so the stars remain in the same spot.

The photographer for that shot explained how he took the picture in greater detail here in response to questions he got from other photogs (look about 60% down the page for his post). Taken from inside the cave, no mask, no clock drive... He says that's how he does all his work. He won the Time Magazine Photo of the Year award in 2007 for a picture of Hale-Bopp he took, and says he's never used superimposition.

I am so impressed...

Makes you want to be there.

Chuck

oh I've seen the milkyway as such before...just no where near a cave
beautiful, isn't it?
that exposure might have been an hour maybe more depending on the lens used...
most people don't know that there are parts of the sky thats darker than anywhere else. I'm inclined to think that bright "star" there is omega centauri

more of his work here > http://www.astropics.com