Summer Milky Way Panorama
Taken by Alan Dyer on July 25, 2014 @
near Oroville, Washington
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Date Taken: 2014:07:27 16:49:48
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Details:
The summer Milky Way arches across the sky in these 360-degree “pans.”
What a fabulous weekend! For the last few nights, July 24-26, I’ve enjoyed the skies and hospitality of the Table Mountain Star Party in northern Washington state, near Oroville, just south of the Canada-US border. The site is the Eden Valley Guest Ranch, under superbly dark skies.
About 300 people, mostly from Washington, enjoyed getting under the Milky Way.
As I wandered around the telescope field I heard all kinds of excited comments in the dark: “Wow, look at that!” “Hey, take a look at the Swan Nebula!” “Want to see the Veil Nebula?”
I was impressed with the great mix of ages and demographics at the TMSP – it wasn’t just “old timers.” There were young families, couples, teens, even a pair of grannies pulled in for a look at the starry sky!
While the Milky Way dominates the panoramas, the other main feature is the green fingers of airglow rising out of the east (at left in the circular image). Only the camera picked these up – the sky looked very dark to the eye. There’s even a faint magenta glow on the northern horizon (at top in the circular image) from aurora.
Both images capture the entire sky, in a panorama set I took using a 14mm Rokinon lens, shooting vertically for 8 segments at 45° spacings. I used PTGui software to stitch and blend the images, then Photoshop to finish them off.
The landscape image uses “equirectangular” projection; the circular image “stereographic” projection for a fish-eye effect. Both take in the entire sky from horizon to horizon, plus a lot of ground, filled with red-lighted and happy observers.
Photographer's website:
http://www.amazingsky.net
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