Tower Of Babel By Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website Instagram Facebook Tower Of Babel, Arches National

Mountain Lake by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Mountain Lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Stacked image in Starry Landscape Stacker, 16 light frames, 1 dark frame.

The Forgotten Arm, Part 1: by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website Instagram Facebook Painted Hand Ancestral Puebloan Ruins “The Forgotten Arm” is actually a boxing term describing “a move in which one arm is used to hit the opponent, causing him to "forget" about the other arm, which is then used to deliver a harsher blow” (Wikipedia). I am going to borrow this phrase to describe the Northern Arm of the Milky Way, or arm of the Milky Way we see extending North in the Northern Hemisphere. Our sun actually lies in the Orion Arm or Orion Spur, a minor arm of the Milky Way between the Sagittarius Arm and the Perseus Arm. Since we are looking from within the Milky Way, we see it as a disk-like structure edge on, rather than a spiral. A large part of what we see when we look away from the Galactic Core is the Perseus Arm. I call this northern portion the “Forgotten Arm” because we go to so much trouble to shoot away from it, and work to include the Galactic Core in our photos instead. We even have “Milky Way Season”, implying the season is over after the core moves below the horizon in our Northern Hemisphere winter. The “Northern Arm” is still up there, and has lots of interesting structures to see, and is photogenic in itself. Among structures in this region are the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), other Galaxies including Mirach’s Ghost Galaxy (NGC404), the Triangulum Galaxy (M33), and others, as well as star clusters including the Double Cluster (DC), Spiral Cluster (M34), Open Cluster (C28), Dragonfly Cluster (DF) and others, as well as Nebula including the Heart Nebula (IC1805), and Soul Nebula (IC1848). I will try and label some of these structures. There will be 2 photos, one with landscape, and one magnified and labeled. More to come, Cheers Wayne

Land of Endless Compositions: The trend nowadays is to not reveal locations, but it can be hard to talk about a shot without revealing the location. 🤔 Oh, well... There are almost endless compositions in the American Southwest if you are willing to look for them and do some hiking. Single, 24 mm, 20 sec., f/2.8, ISO 12,800 https://www.instagram.com/p/CJy-8weBAZ2/?igshid=186uj3z36yafd

Perspective and a Time to be Thankful by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: There is a petrified tree in the foreground lying horizontally on a small hoodoo, located in the Bisti Badlands on New Mexico. 70 million years ago this was a wet and swampy area along a river delta emptying into an inland sea. The area was eventually covered with sandstone, mudstone, shale, and coal. The sea receded, and was left undisturbed for 50 million years. Water from the last Ice Age helped to erode the layers and create hoodoo and expose petrified trees and fossils. This petrified tree is older than the entire history of humanity. The dinosaurs walked the earth in the time of this tree. Great seas and rivers and ice ages have come and gone in that time. The shape and coastlines of the continents have come and gone, and the continents have moved. Mountains have risen and fallen. And then humans showed up, virtually yesterday, in the big scheme of things. Some of the simplest things we take for granted have taken eons to create. The planet we live on is a wonderland of beauty. This is one of the many things to be thankful for. Cheers, Wayne Pinkston Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Big thanks to the wonderful Flickr family out there. Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog

A Vast Eroded Land by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website Instagram Facebook Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah, USA. This panorama was done a little differently than usual. The landscape images were taken under a setting moon (waxing, 50%) approx. 1 hour before moonset. All images were taken at 24 mm. The foreground was taken at f/2.8, 10 sec., ISO 6400. The sky ws taken 2 hours later, on a hour after moonset at f/2., 20 sec., and ISO 12,800. There were 10 vertical images taken at 24 mm for the sky and foreground. Images combined in LR and processed in PS. For more images like this please take a look at my website here . Thanks for all the kind support! Hope you enjoy! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family. Cheers, Wayne

Dreaming of Alien Lands by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website Instagram Facebook This is a panorama taken in the Valley of Dreams in NW New Mexico. 11 images taken at 15 mm, f 3.2, 15 sec., and ISO 6400, stitched together in Lightroom. I was hoping to create a feel for the bizarre and otherworldly landscape. There is a light panel with a warming filter behind the larger hoodoo to the right, and another behind me to the side. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Big thanks to the wonderful Flickr family for all the support and encouragement! Cheers, Wayne

Cedar Breaks Panorama by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website Instagram Facebook This is a panorama made of 2 sets of 13 vertical images from the Cedar Breaks National Monument in Utah. This is less well known as compared to the "Big 5" National Parks in Utah, but is a remarkably beautiful place. It resembles a huge eroded bowl or huge geode cracked open exposing innumerable red to orange hoodoos. Breathtaking! It is very close to Cedar City and Zion National Park. This is a blend of 2 panoramas, taken back to back and with the tripod unchanged in position. The sky images were taken at 18 mm, 20 sec., f 2.8 and ISO 12,800. The foreground was taken at 18 mm, ISO 3200, 300 seconds and f 2.8. The images were blended in photoshop. For anyone counting, lol, the foreground images took a little over an hour at 5 minutes apiece. Sitting around and quietly staring at the sky for an hour can be very pleasant. :-) For more images like this please take a look at my website here . Thanks for all the kind support! Hope you enjoy! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family. Cheers, Wayne

Visions in the Valley of Dreams by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Landscape in the Valley of Dreams, in the Badlands of NW New Mexico.

Hi Can you just prepare tutorial about how to edit milkyway? Also if possible can you share the camera and EXIF? All your milky way photos are amazing. Thanks in advance.

Hi, and thanks for looking at my page. I have already made a “blog” describing how I process the Milky Way and you can find it on my web site here;

http://lightcrafter.smugmug.com/About-Nightscapes

Just scroll down until you see “About Processing” and you are there!

Hope this helps,

Wayne

Whispers of Time Past by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This is false Kiva in Canyonlands National Park, Utah. this is a bit of a different take on the composition, shooting from the far left corner, and covering the whole opening of the cave in a panorama. The right rock wall (outside the alcove) usually looks like a large dark void at night, so I decided to light the wall to give some definition. This was shot with fellow photographer Eric Gail, and the shadows on the ceiling of the cave were his idea. He had the idea of using an Indian Headdress to cast a shadow on the walls, using a small headlamp. The effect was really interesting to the eye as well as in the photo. The sky was nice and clear except for lots of smoke in the air from the wildfires in the Western USA. The smoke mostly stayed near the ground and created the ruddy coloration just above the horizon. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Your time, faves, and comments are much appreciated! Please join me at: Website Facebook Blog