Road to Beyond

[iceman]

I’ve always wanted to get a shot like this, and my recent trip to Monkey Mia in WA gave me the chance.

- Large (http://www.mikesalway.com.au/download/516)
- Blog (http://www.mikesalway.com.au/road-to-beyond/)

The road leads directly to Venus, just above the horizon. The yellow glow to the left is the town of Denham, about 25km away. There’s some green airglow around too. I noticed on the back of the camera at the time and was hoping it would show up in the processed shot.

Monkey Mia is a very remote little holiday destination on the Coral Coast of WA. The place was made famous because wild dolphins come to the beach to be fed every morning. I was lucky enough to be picked to feed a dolphin on one of the mornings we were there! :)

This is a 5 image vertical panorama, captured with the 6D, 14-24, f/2.8, 30s exposures @ ISO6400. I hope you enjoy! Not a single car interrupted the 20 minutes I spent standing in the middle of the road capturing this and other shots :)

Thanks for looking!

[sheeny]

Very nice Mike. An alignment like that can't be ignored!

Al.

[nebulosity.]

WOW!! That's a beauty Mike :eyepop: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: I would seriously put that on my wall.

Cheers
Jo

Man alive it's good :thumbsup:

[leon]

That is an excellent capture Mike, I know you have done many like this however i reckon this is one of the best i have seen from you, well done. IMHO

Leon

[Larryp]

Great shot, Mike!

[Rod771]

Fantastic! The shot just draws you in.

Very very nice Mike!

Congratulations, this image is now IOTW ;) ...... well, it should be :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Fabulous use of perspective.

Greg.

[alexch]

Very nice, Mike! The alignment of the road dividing mark and Venus is sublime :)

[RB]

That is unique.
Well done on capturing a great vista like this Mike.
I can almost hear the Close Encounters theme building up as I look at the scene.

:thumbsup:

[RickS]

That's a lovely composition. Well conceived and executed.

[multiweb]

Encounter of the third kind. Very nice framing indeed. :thumbsup:

[Octane]

Fabulous composition, Mike. Easily one of your best!

My only criticism is the saturation. But, I know that's your thing. :)

H

[alocky]

Hi mike,
Lovely shot indeed! You must have been capturing this while I was at the pinnacles. Quick question: you mention it's a 5 frame panorama. Were the individual frames taken with the camera in landscape mode, did you change focus, and is this the complete mosaic or a crop?
Thanks
Andrew.

[Astro_Bot]

A very nice shot indeed. :thumbsup:

[rogerg]

Great shot :thumbsup:

[MortonH]

Nice. Monkey Mia is an awesome place.

[dvj]

Holy Moly. Look at that sky! That is an APOD for sure. Pure magic.

j

[CapturingTheNight]

Brilliant Shot Mike! One of your best for sure. Got to love when things line up like that. My only critique (and I hope you don't mind) is the cropping/aspect ratio. It just looks a little.........squashed. Would have loved to see either more ground, more sky, or less on the edges to get a classic 2x3 ratio. But I'm nitpicking. Cracker of an image!

[kinetic]

That is a pretty impressive pic Mike!

Steve

[iceman]

Thanks Al, I had seen where Venus was the night before, and that the road from Denham to Monkey Mia was mostly East-West, I just had to find a straight spot of road where Venus was dead ahead :)

I scoped it out the night before, driving back from Denham after sunset and so it was easy enough to find the next night.




Thanks Jo, appreciate the support :)




Cheers Leon, nice of you to say. Thanks.




Thanks Larry!




Cheers Rod, thanks for the feedback :) I very rarely award myself an IOTW ;)




Thanks Greg. I had the tripod down as low as it could go to get plenty of road.




Thanks Alex - it worked out really well and just how I'd planned it in my mind.




haha thanks RB, appreciate the feedback.




Thanks Rick! I love it when a plan works out.




Cheers Marc, much appreciated.




Thanks H. I do love my saturation ;)




Hey Andrew. Thanks. The frames were in landscape mode. I didn't change focus at all, it was on wide open f/2.8 for all shots. It's pretty much the whole mosaic - very little cropping top or bottom or sides. A bit of warping to fill some slight areas in the corners/sides.

I had plenty of overlap between the 5 frames.



THanks heaps!




Cheers Roger!




Thanks Morton. It sure is. We loved it there!




Thanks heaps! Appreciate the kind words.




Thanks Greg, and I don't mind at all. You could be right - I haven't tried any other crops. I almost went for 1:1 square crop by cutting off more of the top of the sky, but I haven't tried it yet.

I can try cutting off some edges for a more 2:3, but I didn't want to lose too much of the road. Will give it a go and see.

Thanks again for the feedback!

[iceman]

Thank Steve!

[redomatic]

Great work Mike.
I like the square crop, the angles and the alignment.
Bravo.

[dutch2]

Gorgeous image, love the sky colour.

[naskies]

Great work, Mike! The Milky Way almost looks like a dragon in the sky :)

[iceman]

Many thanks Michael, much appreciated.




Thanks Ingrid!




Thanks Dave! I like that the Milky Way is straight rather than the usual rainbow.