Spillway Milky Way, Part III: Little Cedar Lake spillway

It happened again.  The forecast had been calling for nothing but clouds, but then it changed late at night.  I walked out on the porch and saw the clouds parting.  I asked Laura if it was okay for me to head out since Lucy was in bed. She, of course, supported my compulsion.  It was too late to call friends, so I went solo.  I thought about going somewhere about an hour away but decided to stay a bit closer just in case it clouded up and also so I'd have more time to shoot.  So, I took off towards Landreth Road and the Little Cedar Spillway.

I had pre-planned a shot of the Milky Way over the spillway for around 3am, but got down there around midnight just in case.  Landreth Road was a muddy, rutted mess on the drive in, so I was glad I had brought the truck instead of the hybrid this time.  I donned my hip waders and started walking down the two-track trail, seeing stars through the trees during the whole slip-and-slide hike down. Some bats also swooped through the road cut before disappearing back into the woods and the dark.

I didn't really have a plan for any shots around midnight, but got my equipment laid out and looked around.  Immediately, I noticed that I could see the full arch of the visible part of the Milky Way, so I became excited to try to take my first full arch panorama.  I danced around on the rocks with the tripod trying to find a good vantage point.  I liked the grass leading into the frame, but had to jump back and forth and all around it until I got a composition that I was happy with.  I finally settled in and shot away.  It took a while to take the 14 different photos (and multiples of each) that I later stitched together to generate this view:

  
I usually use a wide-angle 12mm lens (18mm full-frame equivalent), but wanted to try out 35mm (52mm) to pick up some more detail.  It is hard to portray here because of the size restrictions on the blog, but this panorama has so much detail within the Milky Way.  Star clusters that show up as a glow in the wide-angle actually show as individual stars with this.  The downside is that it requires way more pictures to cover a similar area.  This photograph comprises 5 shots of the sky (actually 15 since I took 3 of each) and several more for the rocks, which I also focus-stacked so that most of the foreground would be in focus.  I messed something up midway through this one, so I didn't get the full width that I would have liked to, but I'm very pleased with it for a first attempt.


It was time.  I moved to the bottom of the spillway.  I had debated whether to wear my hip boots or chest waders and a few holes in the rocks almost made me regret going for the shorter option. I very much appreciated the insane height of the new tripod again because I wanted to stretch out the rocks and show the water moving across them.  My old tripod would have flattened all of that out to just a rock face.

As I was setting up, fish jumped in the beam of my headlamp when I looked down and bats flapped in the light when I looked up.  It was all-around awesome!


 I finished taking the pictures just as it started to get a bit light in the sky.  As I packed up all of my gear, I spotted a raccoon fishing along the rocks.  That's now 3 for 3 on trips this year spotting raccoons and bats! The hike back out was up up up for a mile, which I was glad to finish after another all-nighter.

  The new moon is gone, but I still have hope for one more outing this month.  Stay tuned...

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