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.
To produce this image I combined 27 vertical frames each shot at 20 sec f/3.2 ISO 3200 with my Canon 6D and Sigma 15 mm Check out the reflections! The weather was perfect: clear skies and no wind. If you look closely you can see the faint winter Milky Way on the left side. Also, my trailer and campfire. There's also a boat and a boat trailer used by some duck hunters in the area.
