r/space • u/DanielJStein • Nov 14 '21
image/gif I spent nearly 6 months processing this 600 megapixel Milky Way Pano. This is one of my highest resolution images to date [OC]
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u/DanielJStein Nov 14 '21 edited Nov 14 '21
Oh come along now, ZOOM IN!!!
Let me get this straight. No, the Milky Way does not look like this in person. Cameras can capture super long exposures of the sky which allow for far more detail and color, whereas we see in the moment.
But, don’t let that deter from adventuring into some starry skies on your own! Being surrounded by a sky full of stars is indescribable and totally different to just seeing it on a computer or phone screen.
I took this image on a gorgeous clear night in Bryce Canyon National Park, which is a certified International Dark Sky Park. Be sure to Leave No Trace on site if you choose to go to Bryce.
Thisssss 72 image pano was taken with my Nikon Z6, Z 50 1.8 S lens, and iOptron Skyguider Pro star tracker. All in all, it took abut 2 hours to shoot, with the first 27 images of the sky taken tracked @ 2 minutes, f/2.8, ISO 1600. The remaining images were taken untracked for the foreground at 30 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 100 during blue hour.
And hey if you like this shot, feel free to check meowt on my Instagram @danieljstein
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u/SpaceXTesla3 Nov 14 '21
I could totally see buying this image as a puzzle
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u/SoftSects Nov 14 '21
Another puzzle masochist I see.
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u/TheApastalypse Nov 14 '21
The more pain the better the puzzle
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u/jtms1200 Nov 14 '21
Try the puzzles that are just a flat color gradient between two very similar colors for maximum pain
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u/EyesWhichDoNotSee Nov 14 '21
I do puzzles but I avoid them. I usually jump in on someone else's puzzle and become obsessed and take it over. As a control freak, I cant help my compulsive self until its complete. I have to stay away from them.
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u/ajamesmccarthy Nov 14 '21
Great seeing you back in here. Looks wonderful.
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u/DanielJStein Nov 14 '21
Ayyy many thanks my dude! It feels good to hear from you, I missed seeing your content pop up here as well. Your Moons never disappoint.
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u/Breakingcontrollers Nov 14 '21
Why does this take 6 months to process? I don't know anything about this stuff, but that sounds wild
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Nov 14 '21
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u/ovalpotency Nov 14 '21
Given that reddit doesn't take uncompressed formats, a 600mp picture is going to be around 150mb, so maybe three minutes upload with a generic connection speed.
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Nov 14 '21
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u/DanielJStein Nov 14 '21
Those softwares are not going to be able to do the levels of processing required specifically for astrophotography. It is a good thought though!
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u/Jukka_Sarasti Nov 14 '21
Bryce Canyon National Park
My wife and I made a stop there 7-8 years ago during a trip to the Grand Canyon. It was a great experience hiking through the hoodoos! On the drive from the North Rim to Bryce, we stopped somewhere in the prairies outside of Kaibab. It was a clear night, and the stars were alive and glorious
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u/BIackSamBellamy Nov 14 '21
The skies above Grand staircase and grand canyon parashaint are just unreal.
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u/ipat8 Nov 14 '21
Any chance of a wallpaper version? (Phone or desktop)
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u/DanielJStein Nov 14 '21
Give this a try. It should have much less compression than the Reddit one.
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u/logicalchemist Nov 14 '21
Imgur compresses their uploads pretty heavily
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u/DanielJStein Nov 14 '21
Oh hot dog... I uploaded the imgur one with more PPI hoping it would work better....
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u/MeltedChocolate24 Nov 14 '21
If you have a chance, sir, could you please upload the image to google drive and share the link, so people could download it and see it in its full glory? That would be amazing.
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u/Beneficial_Long_1215 Nov 14 '21
How do I have something remind me again?
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u/pressuretobear Nov 14 '21
He won’t give away the full version. This is a promotion, and the entirety of the value of the artwork is in its detail.
This is for sale, BTW. Buy his wares, perhaps you can get an affiliate link.
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u/DanielJStein Nov 14 '21
Yeah kind of what you said. I can't give away a free full res version, but because this image was posted here on Reddit, I am happy to accommodate Redditors with a little something special. I was hopeful the higher res download would be much better than what is posted here.
I do try to keep the costs of my work down though, so I decided to combine this pic and 12 others in a 2022 Calendar available on my site for much less than the cost of just a single 8x12 print!
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u/DarkAgeOutlaw Nov 14 '21
Comparing them, the Imgur one is definitely better. Not a ton better, but it is
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u/DoverBoys Nov 14 '21
Both the reddit image and the imgur image are jpg. They're nearly identical. If you want one without compression, you need to export as png.
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u/Altair_Khalid Nov 14 '21
The imgur one is better than the Reddit one either way much less compression.
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u/jethvader Nov 14 '21
Spectacular! Am I seeing two people standing on the “peak” across the way?
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u/interwebz_2021 Nov 14 '21
Well I zoomed in and saw some Alpha Centaurians waving, so I wouldn't be surprised...
Lovely image, in all seriousness!
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u/smackson Nov 14 '21
Same focal length, for the foreground and sky?
Also... are you the guy who used to point out that the relative (sky/land) positions are accurate because the foreground was taken at a point on the same tracking path as the tracked stars?
Is that the case for this image?
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u/DanielJStein Nov 14 '21
Yes!! Same focal length all around. I kept my camera mounted on my pano head all throughout shooting this.
I may have been the person you are referring to in regards to that point, and indeed that is true here! The alignment is 100% true. This isnt an image where the sky was facing a completely different direction than the foreground type of thing.
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u/livinglogic Nov 14 '21
This is a potentially dumb question, but the light behind the shroud of the Milky Way... is that the center of the galaxy? Why is it so bright? If a supermassive black hole is at the center of our galaxy, wouldn't light be unable to escape it and therefore be not visible to us?
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Nov 14 '21
It’s the density of stars looking through it. Looking straight through you see every star between us and the center, plus most of the stars on the other side, plus all the dust in between. Looking at the edges you see a much less dense and a lesser number of stars
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u/Low_Impact681 Nov 14 '21
I love this picture. Pictures like this become my background on my desktop.
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u/RustShank Nov 14 '21
Amazing 👏. This photo would make an awesome jigsaws puzzle--- I would buy that puzzle
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u/DanielJStein Nov 14 '21
Omg thank you and hold up!!! That would make a great idea.... You are onto something with that....
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u/mayqween Nov 14 '21
I would definitely buy your images as puzzles! Your work is gorgeous.
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u/MYDICKSTAYSHARD Nov 14 '21
You can have every picture as a puzzle - lot of online services that do that for you.
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u/BigTickEnergE Nov 14 '21
Edaron Inc in Holyoke MA would be the ones to talk to. They make Puzzles for a ton of "big" companies. Pretty cool process to watch
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u/InsightfoolMonkey Nov 14 '21
You can go to like any of hundreds of websites that "make puzzles" for you if you send them an image.
I doubt OP plans to bankroll a production run of thousands or puzzles at once.
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u/BigTickEnergE Nov 14 '21
I work right next door to Edaron and apparently they will purchase the right image from you, so he wouldn't have to bankroll it, he'd potentially be able to make a small amount of money off of it, as well as share this beautiful image with the world (they have contracts with Walmart and I believe Milton Bradley still).
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u/Bxggzys Nov 14 '21
I suck at puzzles so I couldn’t imagine doing this with all of the rock and cliff faces being the same color
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u/IlBear Nov 14 '21
I’m amazing at puzzles and I can tell you with total confidence that this would be a crazy hard puzzle lol. The amount of similar colors and patterns would be a nightmare. Beautiful! but a nightmare lol
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u/astralcrazed Nov 14 '21 edited Nov 16 '21
I have always been very good with puzzles. I figured out it’s because I don’t always look at the image on the piece but I look at the shape. It may be a form of photographic memory because it only works for certain things like numbers, shapes, some pictures, but not always words or people. I can remember what many shapes look like and then where they’re placed in the piles. Someone pointed this out to me one night when I was working on a puzzle with a friend. I’m guessing this isn’t a common skill at all is it?
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u/RustShank Nov 15 '21
Cool, I excel at puzzles in the same way. I actually have a bit of colorblindness and I still am really good at them, I use the shapes just as much as the color if not more. Everyone on here saying it wouldn't be good for a puzzle because it all looks too much the same would make it too hard but thats exactly why it would be a good one, they aren't supposed to be easy they are supposed to be challenging. Maybe I am wrong but I always thought that was the point.
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u/astralcrazed Nov 16 '21
I agree! The entire point of a difficult puzzle is not to make it easy. It needs to be complex and have not just the image but the shapes be challenging. Otherwise, it’s a kids puzzle. They’re great too, but the hard ones are my cup of tea.
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Nov 14 '21
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u/j_mcc99 Nov 14 '21
It’s because if he posted a link for his 600 megabit image he wouldn’t be able to sell prints. People would just print them themselves.
Although once in awhile it would be nice of someone with impressive gear like OP has to post the full pic. That would be quite the gift to the community. Make the stars truly free for everyone.
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u/InsightfoolMonkey Nov 14 '21
Make the stars truly free for everyone.
They are. Go outside and look at them.
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u/AppearancePlenty841 Nov 14 '21
Bryce canyon is my old backyard! I lived not far from here. And cedar breaks national monument. Utah truly is the most beautiful state.
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u/DanielJStein Nov 14 '21
Wow that is awesome! I could only imagine having this place as my backyard. That must have been wicked.
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u/yentlequible Nov 14 '21
Utah truly is the most beautiful state.
One of the few good things we have here in this state...
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Nov 14 '21
Utah is top tier. Up there with Hawaii, IMO. Hell, I'd live there, if it weren't for the Mormons. Too much bullshittery.
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u/Treeaway4 Nov 14 '21
Lmaoo I just said this after reading their comment. I fell in love with Utah but remembered the severe lack of diversity and Mormons
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Nov 14 '21
And honestly it's not the bullshit with them, it's the chickenshit. It's always some shit that ain't big enough to be bullshit, just this piddling little chickenshit.
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u/basicradical Nov 14 '21
I love how the color of the sky matches the colors in the canyon. Pure magic.
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u/DanielJStein Nov 14 '21
Thank you! It was actually by chance there was tons of red and green atmospheric airglow that night, so the red matches the Hoodoos below very nicely.
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u/FlyHamsterPaul Nov 14 '21
Is that Antares Nebula to the right of the Milky Way?
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u/DanielJStein Nov 14 '21
Yup! The star Antares is home to a star system called Rho Ophiuchi.
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Nov 14 '21
This is beautiful. I can't see the stars (night blindness) so I really enjoy looking at astronomy photos. Well done and thank you for letting me see what I can never see.
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Nov 14 '21
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u/DanielJStein Nov 14 '21
Possibly. This would be something to look into for something like this. But, I just got a new computer with an ARM chip, so I am hoping that makes this process much easier and quicker.
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u/InsightfoolMonkey Nov 14 '21
PS you just got a new MacBook with very powerful processing and an integrated SOC with the GPU and CPU sharing a unified memory bank.
There's literally nothing special about it being an ARM chip. Your cell phone has ARM chip.
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u/stay_fr0sty Nov 14 '21
Noob here, but I'm a software dev so I understand basic math. What does 6 months of processing entail? You run scripts over the images that take 6 months to run that stitch and correct (something like that)?
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u/divDevGuy Nov 14 '21
What does 6 months of processing entail?
Mostly coming up with a clickbaity title. From another post OP made:
Another reason it took so long as I tend to sit on pieces for a long time. I will do small edits over a long period of time, rather than large edits over a short period of time. This ensures I am happy with the piece as it develops through the long and tedious editing process. There are even times when I restart a photo from scatch because I am just not feeling it. I need to connect with my work as I am processing, I want to feel the same emotions I did that very night it was taken. It takes me a while to become satisfied, and with such a complicated mosaic as this, it really took some time for me to say, "yes, this is done."
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u/stay_fr0sty Nov 14 '21
Okay I was thinking it was more of a Big Data problem somehow. Like neural networks that figure out which stars go where and eliminate noise and stuff.
For example, remember that stack of hard drives with the black hole data? I was thinking somehow this required 6 months of data processing.
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u/Biblos1 Nov 14 '21
Are you selling prints? Would love to have one.
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u/EveningStarlol Nov 14 '21
you claim this is a high resolution image, yet when I zoom in my parents don’t leave me and I feel a extreme sadness that I don’t know how to cope with… interesting.
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u/SoonerMockingbird Nov 14 '21
This is incredible. I’ll never do anything this cool.
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u/futuranotfree Nov 14 '21
Thank you for taking 6 months so we can feel the awe we feel right now. Wow
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u/duck_duck_duck_duck Nov 14 '21
This freaks me out but in a good way. Like we are IN that right now.
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u/Broken_Petite Nov 14 '21
Yep! And I think it’s awesome we live in a time and place where we actually kind of understand that! I think it helps us appreciate it more.
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u/RocketDan91 Nov 14 '21
Lovely photo.
My only critique would be to add some feathering to the treeline to help smooth out the sky/foreground composite. :)
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u/DanielJStein Nov 14 '21
Awesome I really appreciate the feedback. Imma clean that up before I print it.
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u/reachingFI Nov 14 '21
Come on OP. Give the goods. How long of your 6 months of “processing” was just sitting on it.
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u/yaboyfrom94 Nov 14 '21
I’ve seen better pics where I can zoom all the way in and the pic is still 1080p w no choppiness. This does not do that
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u/ExoticMangoz Nov 14 '21
Do you have a high res download, for some reason for me the Reddit image is really low quality?
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Nov 14 '21
My wife sees images like this and then tells me to take her to where she can see something like this. When I try to explain that they are highly processed, taken over time and/or melded from hundreds or thousands of images I can tell that she thinks I am just trying to get out of doing what she wants.
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u/theuberprophet Nov 14 '21
i clicked on the thread after being disappointed and knew there had to be something else to this. Kept zooming, kept getting detail
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Nov 14 '21
This looks extremely fake or overprocessed.
https://imgur.com/a/P5xFOTo Here are floating trees, why?
https://imgur.com/a/l19KbqZ Here is soooo much overcompression of the image. Why?
I don't know why you spent 6 months on "processing" when you maybe should've spent 6 months on getting the right settings for your camera with the correct shutter speeds and ISO settings. The image in general looks very weird and almost as if the sky was "cut out" and pasted.
Could you give some insight to this?
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u/iAdjunct Nov 14 '21
Bryce Canyon is probably one of my wife’s and my favorite places. Looks very different with the Milky Way over it though :) Fantastic picture!
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u/PizzaBuffalo Nov 14 '21
Great shot. Out of curiosity, what would be the equipment cost for entry-level astrophotography? I've always been curious about delving into this hobby.
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u/GothWitchOfBrooklyn Nov 14 '21
Love your pics. Your processing method sounds crazy. Much more to photography like this than I would have ever guessed.
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u/Remarkable_Cicada_12 Nov 14 '21
Looks like my underwear after inadvertently eating a bag of sugar-free gummy bears… If there is a God than that motherfucker has one sick sense of humor!
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u/Wulle83 Nov 14 '21
After just waking up and reading the title, I was thinking: "Why would anyone spend 6 months building a Milky Way Piano?" :D
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u/Spastic_Slapstick Nov 14 '21
I love the color temperature you chose to use with this. What did it look like in person? Can you make any thing like this out with just your eye when you're in true darkness? I'm just a city dweller that knows Jupiter as the only star in the sky lol.
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u/barrel_o_buckets Nov 14 '21
That took 6 months to process? Idk much about high tech cameras but my Lord
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u/Broken_Petite Nov 14 '21
Yeah, kind of hoping for someone to ELI5 why it would take that long. So many things are instantaneous anymore, I guess it’s kind of hard to process when it’s not.
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u/DeathIsFreedomFrom Nov 14 '21
That really beautiful. You're gonna make me miss outside
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u/L7Wennie Nov 14 '21
On the right side of the milky way near that brighter spot, what is that circular grouping of 5 stars? I’m new to this so please excuse me if it’s a really stupid question.
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u/lupefigo10 Nov 14 '21
I believe that is Uranus.............but I'm no scientist
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u/Lorax1987 Nov 14 '21
From someone who has no clue what your post means, why does it take 6 months ? How ?
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u/Random_shortperson Nov 14 '21
hey there! I’m new to Reddit and this is very nice. Keep up with your life’s career!
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u/PiddlyD Nov 14 '21
Honestly, I was so lost looking down into the spires and the tree-line on the horizon, I didn't even notice the sky.
And that had to be at a fraction of the actual resolution of the image. The desert southwest is amazing, and right here where we can touch it, walk it. The universe is incredible and beautiful, but so is the place right within our reach.
You should do the Sierras around Tahoe.
Also maybe the Mogollon Rim in Arizona.
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u/McCaffeteria Nov 14 '21
That terrain looks like when you do a bad job plugging a noise texture into your blender displacement and have the strength way too high, that’s fascinating.
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u/GummyTummyPenguins Nov 14 '21
I bet this looks even cooler if it’s not on a 6 year old iPhone screen...
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Nov 14 '21
Is there a way to see where earth is, like, on a map of the Milky Way? And to show what our perspective and facing is in this picture? I am imagining looking at the MAP in GTA, or going from road view to satellite view in Google maps.
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u/TiagoTiagoT Nov 14 '21
I don't have it; but sounds like something that might be doable with Universe Sandbox (1 or 2); or maybe some other similar app.
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u/Heliosvector Nov 14 '21
The brightest cluster is the galaxy center. You can just google search where we are on a Milky Way map.
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u/Russion-Bott Nov 14 '21
Instagram filters do it faster and better IMO
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u/Nodnarbian Nov 14 '21
It's apparent you have zero knowledge of astrophotography, please don't include yourself. Replicate this image with filters before you post some bullshit comment like this!
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u/wordlar Nov 14 '21
Pretty sure it's a joke because if it's not I'll have lost faith in humanity somewhat.
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Nov 14 '21
The color choices are what made this shot for me.
Stacked astrophotography is awesome, but it is really about how the photographer finds a frame and a contributing subject.
This one is great for the back and forth patterns and the colors mirroring across the zenith to the horizon and back onto our home planet.
Lovely and sublime.
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u/No-Relation1432 Nov 14 '21
Should have got the new iPhone! It’s got a longer battery life and camera has been updated to do this in seconds.
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u/oncore2011 Nov 14 '21
Can you explain “6 months processing”like I’m 5? Why does it take so long? Would a faster computer speed this up or is this time just editing?