After several false attempts I finally ended up at Schulman Grove as the Milky Way season was drawing to a close. This ancient bristlecone pine is obviously very popular as several like minded photographers showed up as the evening progressed. Amazingly, everyone worked together to light up the tree with two low level lights. Taken with a Nikon D850/ 14-24mm, f2.8 lens Settings for MW was 14mm, f2.8, 13sec at ISO 6400, 10 exposures were blended in Starry Landscape Stacker to reduce noise.
I showed up at Mono Lake but was not well prepared to shoot the Milky Way as I had forgotten to pack my low level lights. So this image is a composite with the foreground shot during blue hour.
This has been one of my favorite places to visit during our visit to Arizona this year. This place is especially beautiful after it has rained and the small puddles reflect Cathedral Rock. I was there for multiple sunsets and sunrises each time it would rain in the hopes of getting some action in the skies to complement the awesome Cathedral Rock monument and foreground. As luck would have it, I never came back feeling that I had achieved the killer shot I was hoping for. Eventually, as the weeks went by and March rolled on, the opportunity for a Milk Way shot also arose but as luck would have it, the skies turned overly cloudy and the reflection ponds started drying out. I finally did get my chance one night and the skies cleared up briefly. Most of the water puddles had dried out but this one was still holding on to its water. The sky is composed of 10 shots stacked with Starry Milk Way Stacker. The foreground was captured during the blue hour.
