Galaxy Rising

[Roger Clark]

My first post in this forum. I rarely do "digital art," but thought I would give this a try.

The terrestrial scene is from a 4x5 Fuji Velvia image I took many years ago. Somewhere I have the exposure, f/ratio and focal length but can't find it easily. Probably something like a 150 mm lens, f/45, polarizer on Velvia ISO 50. The galaxy is the Andromeda galaxy, M31, and was imaged with a 500 mm lens + 1.4x TC and Canon 1D Mark II (700 mm f/5.6) ISO 800 averaged 23 75 second exposures (so total exposure was 28.75 minutes. The lens was on a telescope mount, tracking to compensate for the Earth's rotation. Combined in photoshop. Reflection of stars was done by selecting the galaxy, inverting the copied image and stretching it with distort to match the view of the mountain reflections. Then the layer erased except over the lake.

Roger

[Mitch Carucci]

Really nice. I am impressed with the quality of the Andromeda pic. Not easy. The seeing must have been great!

If I were to make any suggestion, it would be to darken the foreground to create more of a "day for night effect".

[Jay Sheinfield]

Roger, I like it, as well as being impressed the technical details to create the image. The landscape is quite nice. +1 on Mitch's suggestion on the lighting. I like your vision on this one.........do more!

[John Storjohann]

Roger, welcome to OOTB...I hope to see more of your work here. I echo the comments already made...masterful technical work, a strong base landscape...adjusting the lighting in the foreground would take this over the top. I might darken the blue in the sky a bit, too, just to create a stronger sense of separation from the blue tone found in the Tetons and the sky itself. Nicely done!

[laurie golden]

Wow this is way to much for me to understand, not out of the box but out of the world. Keep giving us new things to think about and hope for. Thank you.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Roger - welcome to OOTB!!! I think the lighting suggestions are good ones but the image is just wonderful as it is. I hope you share more of your images with us

[Roger Clark]

All,
Thanks for the suggestions. I agree and I redid the image from scratch using higher resolution images. That also resulted in better star colors (at least on my full resolution version). I also gave more space at the top of the image.

I like making star images in twilight as I like the deep blue background, and it seems few others do that. Here is a recent attempt at an 11-frame mosaic in deep twilight over in the landscape forum:
http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...onal-Park-Utah
so not a manufactured image like the one posted here. Actually the same galaxy is in the above Mesa Arch mosaic as a small smudge in the lower left. The galaxy (called M31 or the Andromeda galaxy) is about 3 degrees across (or 6-times the diameter of the full Moon).

The blue from this image posted here in this thread is from the 4x5 daytime image. I darkened the sky in the repost. I added the stars via screen (100%) in a layer, then erased where the stars should not be (like in front of the mountains).

Roger

[Jay Sheinfield]

Roger, Woah! That's it! Very, very well done............Excellent post on the Landscape forum. The lighting and framing is fabulous.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Roger - perfect! I sure hope you visit us more often

[John Storjohann]

Wow. The re-post is stunning. Keep them coming!

[denise ippolito]

Roger, I'm late to this thread but just wanted to add WOW! very nice first post and I hope you visit here more often!

[Bob Miller]

Roger...Impressive work......I like the repost even more.....you might even darken the fg a bit more....welcome to the forum