Two from Wilsons Prom

[alexch]

Hi All,

Just got back from a short camping trip at the Tidal River Camp, Wilsons Prom. Despite the wild weather we had good fun, the tent survived strong winds and rain.

Thursday night, when thunderstorms and winds suddenly stopped at 3.30am I got out of the tent and looked up. I don't think I have ever seen the sky as steady and transparent. Not a twinkle and clear as. I contemplated getting the camera out and setting up, but then 15 minutes later the wind started blowing from another direction and the clear skies were gone.

Next night in between clouds I managed to take the two images below.

In the first image the Moon was still up and lit the ground.
Single 30-second exposure with Nikon D700, 14-24mm lens at f/2.8 and ISO 3200.

For the second image after the Moon was gone, I stacked 7 30-second images at ISO 3200 together in DeepSkyStacker.

Both processed with Nikon Capture NX2 and Photoshop CS5.

Cheers,
Alex

[Octane]

Superb images.

I can see the Dark Doodad under the Southern Cross. : )

H

[astroron]

Great images Alex:thumbsup:
I was there last year, fantastic place , must go again some time :thumbsup:
Did you get attacked by the killer Wombats :question::rolleyes::lol:

[Geoff uk]

well done Alex now to me thats a dark sky love it if only we had it in u.k. i would be it my element one envius pom take and all the best Geoff

[Peter Ward]

Sublime :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[TrevorW]

Top shots Alex worthy of a comp or two

[iceman]

Lovely shots Alex! Nice work.

[Garyh]

Love that second one! :thumbsup:

[multiweb]

Beautiful as always. :thumbsup:

[niko]

stunning and beautiful composition

well done alex

[strongmanmike]

Yeh these are nice Alex, the mysterious glows from the townships really give the shots some mood and human reference without being obvious. The land to sky transition looks believable too, well done.

Just an idea, you might like to try deliberately saturating the bright stars just a tad to highlight the notable constellations?

On my fairly contrasty monitor here at work there looks to be a lot cyan/blue in the sky.? Still looks good though.

Mike

[BLiTZWiNG]

Ahh Smelly River, good spot that for viewing... and the RAAF fly past reasonably often too, if you sit on squeaky beach for a while you should see a few jets every now and again on the horizon out to sea.

Pity about the smell, but I miss the Rosellas. Up here we get Eastern Rosellas, they're pretty blue/yellow/green coloured.

[alexch]

Thanks, H.
I am happy I could snap these two given the wild weather.


Thanks, Ron.

I saw one grazing near our tent 1am in the morning. All food was kept locked in the car so it did not attack, but left a lot of green "I was here" messages around the car :)


Thanks, Geoff. That spot at the Tidal River is darky sky by my standard too :)














Peter, Trevor, Mike, Gary, Marc, Niko - thanks a lot guys!



Thanks, Mike.
These are not townships but the Tidal River Camp site a hundred metres away!

The frist shot is a single exposure, so no problems with the land/sky transitions there. When I stack I blend the exposures back first to match a single exposure and then adjust the levels, so the land/sky transition is quite natural.

There is moonlight in the first image - hence the blue/cyan colour. The second image looks fairly neutral on my calibrated screen (must remind myself to re-do the calibration soon).





There was no smell this time of the year and kids enjoyed swimming in it. The Squeaky Beach is a great spot, I must come back and image there at night.

[BLiTZWiNG]

I wish I had thought of that before leaving Vic. I hate camping but at least that would have been something fun for me to do while there!

[jase]

Gorgeous work Alex. Weather was rather dodge down that way but pleased to see you made the most of it. Liked them both, very nice.

[Hagar]

Great images as usual Alex. I remember all these locations you have visited from many years ago and enjoy the recollectionof them and the lovely skies.
Thanks for posting.

[Paul Haese]

The second is a great shot, but I see cyan too. Some slight colour adjustment in blue curves fixes that.

[alexch]

Thanks, Jase. The clear skies did not last very long at all.


Doug, thanks a lot. I must go back to Wilsons prom with the telescope - the seeing appeared good on both nights when it was clear.

Jase and Doug - thanks heaps!



Thanks Paul. Mike and you were right, on closer inspection it is definitely cyan, thanks for pointing it out. I will fix with curves adjustment.