Antares

Image Critiques
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Original - Antares Sky-Edit-Edit-Edit-9.jpg
Original - Antares Sky-Edit-Edit-Edit-9.jpg1365×2048 2.22 MB

Critique Style: Standard

The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.

Feedback Focus: Artistic / Expressive

About This Image

Antares

I have this thing about my Milky Way images where I must include the Dark Horse Nebula and the dust lanes leading to both the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex and star Antares. Rho shows up with a bluish tint just above Antares itself, while Antares is noticeably orange. Due to the Earth’s rotation, the stars appear to move across the night sky fairly quickly. When facing south, as I am in this photo, they shift to the west and sink lower each minute. I barely got this 3 minute exposure done before Antares set behind Elephant Mountain.

Now, a little bit about Antares. Its name translates to “Rival of Ares”. Ares was the Greek god of war, which the Romans adapted to Mars. Both Mars and Antares have the same orange color. Unlike the planet Mars, Antares is a massive red supergiant star. It is 550 light years away. It is 700 times the diameter of our own Sun and shines 10,000 time brighter! If Antares was where our Sun is, its diameter would extend past where Earth’s orbit is! Now thats a truly gigantic star!

In this image, a breeze kept the water slightly wavy with small swells. This blurred the reflection of the brighter stars into the fantastic streaks you see here.

Feedback Requested

This image was from back in July. This location is often perfectly calm late at night, but on this night there was a gentle breeze which precluded having any foreground elements. However, after a few test shots, I thought the star-blurred foreground was interesting. It’s sort of jarring seeing the disparity between the sky and its reflection. Do you think this is distraction or makes it an artistically compelling image?

Technical Details

Nikon Z8

Sigma Art 14-24mm f/2.8 with FTZ2

MSM Nomad tracker

Land: ISO 2000, f/3.2, 240 sec, 14mm

Sky: 3 images stacked. ISO 640, f/2.8, 180sec, 14mm

Blending and start reduction in Photoshop

Processed in Lightroom Classic CC

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Paul,

Wonderful photo. I particularly like how you just have Antares at the horizon and how its light is reflected in the water. The rest of the Milky Way is exposed perfectly even the dust lanes from Antares to the core. I don’t think it needs any adjustments. Well done.

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Paul, this is an excellent night view of the Milky Way and surroundings. I agree that the light trails in the water are a special addition.

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Wonderful!!! The Dark Horse and Rho are must-include items for me, too. I love the sense of movement in the reflections, which contrasts with the looming Milky Way! And I love the ratio of sky to ground here – you have included enough of the MW to hint at its vastness. Just enough detail on the trees and mountains, too.

My only (definitely minor) nit is that the reflections from Antares and the Rho are stronger than what I can see of them in the sky – maybe tone them down a bit?

Looks like a very good portable tracker.

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Beautiful photo, I love the reflections in the water. You must have some nice dark skies.

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The only thing South of here is Yellowstone! Despite Bozeman being 10 miles north, it’s incredibly dark looking toward the Core.

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I’m jealous!

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Very nice image Paul. I also enjoy practicing landscape astrophotography, and deep sky astrophotgraphy as well with a Seestar. But my favorite night time images have an interesting foreground subject with the night-sky above. It is getting more difficult to find a dark sky these days, not just from terrestrial light pollution but also one without all of the space junk floating above. And now a company named “Reflect Orbital” wants to put 50,000 sixty sq. ft. mirrors in space to light the earth at night!

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This is a new wonderful world for me that I must break into.

The Antares reflection is amazing - looking at the star direct I cant always appreciate the differences in luminosity so clearly. I appreciate the brighter starts are visible first in the fading light - but the few stars with reflections really emphasises this - and the red colour.

No real critique comments - but amazing!

Regards

Huw