Starship Asterisk*

King of Wings Hoodoo under the Milky Way

Explanation: This rock structure is not only surreal -- it's real. The reason it's not more famous is that it is, perhaps, smaller than one might guess: the capstone rock overhangs only a few meters. Even so, the King of Wings outcrop, located in New Mexico, USA, is a fascinating example of an unusual type of rock structure called a hoodoo. Hoodoos may form when a layer of hard rock overlays a layer of eroding softer rock. Figuring out the details of incorporating this hoodoo into a night-sky photoshoot took over a year. Besides waiting for a suitably picturesque night behind a sky with few clouds, the foreground had to be artificially lit just right relative to the natural glow of the background. After much planning and waiting, the final shot, featured here, was taken in May 2016. Mimicking the horizontal bar, the background sky features the band of our Milky Way Galaxy stretching overhead.

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Magnificent shot! Being somewhat of a photographer, I can only imagine the time and effort put into planning and executing this one. Simply GREAT!

The photo is a keeper. Thanks. I wonder what the story is behind the skeletal remains?

Awesome place... awesome shot...

:---[===] *

I'm gonna give you thirty days to get back home
I done talked to the gypsy woman on the telephone
She gonna send out a world wide hoodoo
That'll be the very thing that'll suit ya
I'm gonna see that you be back home in thirty days
Oh thirty days (thirty days!)
Oh thirty days (thirty days!)
I'm gonna see that you be back home in thirty days
Gonna send out a world wide hoodoo
That'll be the very thing that'll suit ya
I'm gonna see that you be back home in thirty days.

DL MARTIN wrote:The photo is a keeper. Thanks. I wonder what the story is behind the skeletal remains?

It has to represent the patience of all astrophotographers.

Put this image on a United States stamp ( and others from here ) The Pluto images were somewhat disappointing.

Wow! What a great suggestive picture of earth and sky. First I noticed the hoodo as mentionend, and then the Milky Way. After that I see the leaning stone in the lower right and at last the light left of the stone. No one is parallell to the earlier one, but the first and the last is parallell to each other, which makes the image intriguing.

Then I notice that the hoodos, going back to where I started, that these hoodos are lighted up (artificially?) just as the leaning stone mentionend earlier and some other stones. This light comes from the lower left. Thus light in the image is coming from several places, but no one over-shines the others.

Which begs one question. The light coming from the lower left (behind the rock structure with the hoodos), where does it emanate from?

Frankly that pic does not do justice to this remarkable object, unlike one linked to in the blurb: https://www.isaczermak.com/gallery/nort ... n.jpg.html.

John

Are the stars bright all the way to the horizon because it was such a clear night or was the sky photographed at a different time then added to the foreground or enhanced in another way?

JohnD wrote:Frankly that pic does not do justice to this remarkable object, unlike one linked to in the blurb: https://www.isaczermak.com/gallery/nort ... n.jpg.html.

John

Not a really smart place to stand though.

KaSplat wrote:

JohnD wrote:Frankly that pic does not do justice to this remarkable object, unlike one linked to in the blurb: https://www.isaczermak.com/gallery/nort ... n.jpg.html.

John

Not a really smart place to stand though.

Odds are in his favor.

Fred the Cat wrote:Are the stars bright all the way to the horizon because it was such a clear night or was the sky photographed at a different time then added to the foreground or enhanced in another way?

Good point. Alcor, Arne, also pointed out that the light in this picture is coming from different directions.

This APOD is most definitely a composite image. Look at the lonely bright star near the horizon at far right. That is Theta Scorpii, a star of magnitude 1.86. But now look at the faint star "hanging down" from the Milky Way about halfway over the Hoodoo. That is Altair, a star of magnitude 0.93. Not only is Altair a brighter star than Theta Scorpii when both are observed against a black sky in good seeing conditions, but in this picture Theta Sco is close to horizon and immersed in red clouds. Altair is higher in the sky and positioned in a cloudless part of it. Altair should look very much brighter than Theta Sco under the circumstances, but instead Theta Sco looks much brighter than Altair.

So this is a composite image. Of course, that in itself doesn't mean that we are being lied to, but it would have been nice to have that fact pointed out.

Ann