This is my first Milky Way photo for 2017. I shot this over the southern shore.
Very early season Milky Way rises over the southern portion of the Salton Sea. Unlike Thursday night, the wind and water were mostly calm. Still, it's a big challenge to make the Milky Way "pop" when it's this early in the season and the galaxy is so close to the haze and light pollution on the horizon. Check out the star reflections in the water. I shot this with my Canon 6D and Sigma 15mm at 25 sec f/2.8 ISO 3200. I had to do some serious work in Lightroom to get this result. Later in the season - when the Milky Way is higher in the sky - my shots require little post-production work.
The create this photo I shot 875 frames over a period of five hours and ten minutes on the south shore of the Salton Sea. Each shot was done at 20 sec f/3.2 ISO 3200 with my Canon 6D and Sigma 15mm lens. I spent over eleven hours removing airplane trails. The weather was perfect: clear skies and the water was dead calm almost the entire time. Finally, I stacked the shots in StarStaX to produce the result you see here.
