Out On The Balcony

[CapturingTheNight]

Hi all,

Star Trails at The Balconies, Grampians National Park, Australia, 27/12/2013

One of the reasons I love taking images at night is you can have whole locations to yourself. During the day this iconic vista is positively crawly with tourists, but as soon as the sun goes down they all leave.

I have been wanting to do this image for a long time now. In fact I once did a 16 hour round trip in an attempt to capture an aurora display from here but was thwarted by clouds. Finally got another chance last week whilst I was in the area visiting family over the festive season.

Canon 5DMkII, 14mm, F/2.8, ISO 1600, 60 times 30 second exposures. First image taken as the last glow of sunset faded on the horizon. Stacked in StarStax.

154206

Cheers

Greg

[iceman]

Beautiful foreground!

Great stuff, Greg.

[Larryp]

Very spectacular, Greg

[cometcatcher]

That's awesome, but isn't that the rock Wile E Coyote had trouble with? ;)

[dutch2]

Great location and fantastic image.
Well done.:thumbsup:

[Paul Haese]

Lovely Greg. Great colour.

[Derek Klepp]

Great perspective.

[Rod771]

Very well done indeed Greg! :thumbsup:

8 hour trip ruined by clouds - arrrrgghhh! :mad2:

[Ross G]

Great looking startrail photo Greg.

Nice colours and composition.

Ross.

[CapturingTheNight]

Thank you so much everyone :D



Yeah it was one of the darker moments in my photography so far. It was predicted to be the only place in the whole of Vic to be clear that night, so with an X-class flare due to hit Earth I went for it. Eight hour drive, nothing but clouds and rain for the whole night, eight hour drive home :(

[StephenM]

Awesome result Greg!

[matt34]

Great image Greg, hope you were careful walking out onto the ledge in the dark

[CapturingTheNight]

Thank you very much Stephen and Matt :D



Yeah I was. Surprised how much wider it was. Looks a lot more precarious from the 'official' viewing point.