Starship Asterisk*

This photo appears to be a faked composite. The view of the Great Gallery seems to be taken with a rather wide angle lens, and any wide angle shot of the Milky Way makes the stars very, very, very small on the 'film', nowhere near the size of the stars as seen in the photo. I have filmed the milky way in the desert before, and even with one minute exposures at ISO 1000, the Milky Way comes nowhere near what is showing in this shot. In addition there appears to be snow on the ground opposite the gallery, and that snow is illuminated! The only way the snow could be that bright would be with moonlight. And if the moon was in the sky that night, the color of the sky would have never been that black, as it is in this shot, there would have been a blueness in the sky. And as the sky scene nears the horizon, it would have been lighter(bluer) that it would have been overhead, due to atmospheric illumination from the moon.

An interesting shot for sure, but at least admit it is a composite. Otherwise your respect goes down the drain. You should be ashamed of pretending this is a real photo! No way!

photoz wrote:This photo appears to be a faked composite. ...

First... so? Why would being a composite (if it is) make it a fake? There are many astronomical photographs which are composites, for very good reasons.

Second... you should have taken the time to read through the thread before posting. Your concerns were addressed at the top of page two of the thread. You owe the photographer and the editors of APOD an apology.

Rob

Bret Webster wrote:

johndmura wrote:Astro Pic for May 19 description is totally bogus !

John - I thought I might learn something if I asked why you think the narrative is "bogus"?

And johndmura has already had his questions answered on page 1.
Troll?

John

Thanks to rst and John D for providing photoz with hopefully helpful information for him!

The Ghost Panel image is a single exposure image. It is not a composite. I just now downloaded the image from APOD and noted that the EXIF data is retained on this single image and available for anyone who cares to examine it. Too bad the poster didn’t.

He is right about the shot being taken with a wide lens…a 15 mm fisheye on a full-frame sensor giving a complete 180 degrees of coverage. In photoz experience the stars may have appeared small for a lower ISO image but at ISO 3200 and 57 seconds the stars are in fact seriously “over cooked” as they are in this image. The poster states that “even with one minute exposures at ISO 1000..” indicates that he has limited experience in imaging the Milky Way with modern DSLRs. It is helpful to be aware that the cliff in this shot is several hundred feet tall…much taller than it looks – therefore to illuminate it satisfactorily took many, many (~40) tries with a very bright 3M candlepower spotlight (w/diffuser) systematically sweeping back-n-forth across the cliff over several seconds…faster at the close locations and slower as it got further away. This provides quite a source of illumination for reflective objects nearby in the canyon.. such as snow. A quick check of the calendar will show that there was no moon on March 12, 2010.

Photoz choice of words does seem somewhat purposefully offensive and disparaging. Troll indeed! This reflects on the poster. I’m a little disappointed that my image would generate discourse like this on this wonderful forum. If he was more informed and knowledgeable it would have precluded his critique altogether. I guess ultimately his response can be taken as high praise …The image astounded that person (albeit disordered) to near apoplexy!