Milkyway Over Mount Rainier

[bigtree]

tweeted by, The White House ?@whitehouse

RT @Interior: One of the most stunning photos we've ever seen. The #milkyway over @MountRainierNPS http://instagr.am/p/U7KGbSAu2Y

____ Some images are just plain extraordinary -- and often, the photographer has invested a great deal of time and effort to make that image happen. Photographer Dave Morrow describes the process of among this image from #MountRainier nationalpark in October, 2012. "I went up to SunrisePoint at Mt. Rainier last weekend with my buddy Keith. After a lame sunset, we waited for the MilkyWay to come out. The placement was just perfect and the sky was pitch black! Time to jack up the ISO and shoot some stars...this was one of many from the night."

[livetohike]

1. Wow!!! Thanks for sharing this

[Coyotl]

26. Check out the photographer's domain:

http://www.davemorrowphotography.com/

[FourScore]

49. wonderful!

[MrMickeysMom]

61. Talent!

Beauty!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. This is stunning...thank you!

[malaise]

3. Stunningly beautiful

Thanks

[dipsydoodle]

4. Just wonderful

[longship]

5. And a meteor zooming in from the left.

R&K

[rateyes]

18. And the right.

[longship]

19. Your eyes are better than mine. Missed that one. nt

[SWTORFanatic]

37. There are actually 5 in the picture. Look close.

[11 Bravo]

6. Spectacular! That's a truly stunning photo. I especially love the meteorites ...

coming from both left and right, serving to frame the mass of stars.

[Junkdrawer]

8. ..or satellites seen because of the long exposure times?

[Capt.Rocky300]

29. Definitely satellites..........

the paths are too straight to be meteors.

[HappyMe]

9. Love this!

Thank you for posting.

Reminds you how small you are compared to the universe.

[octoberlib]

10. Beautiful! nt

[sky imager]

11. The home galaxy of the human species..

[trusty elf]

12. Gorgeous

thanks

[tavalon]

13. I thought I would have to wait for the inevitable eruption before we would get different shots

of The Mountain. I was wrong. This is fantastic.

[tavalon]

14. It's like our iconic volcano spewed stars

[Aristus]

42. I was thinking the same thing!

Reminds me of this old Charles Addams cartoon:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_s57ISZAyJXI/RzFmz-ZEItI/AAAAAAAAAdk/CpALaAMYSWs/s400/Charles+Addams+13+June+1964+volcano+kind+gods.jpg

[pinboy3niner]

15. My photo of the same scene:

Morrow may have lacked the equipment or the talent to capture the shot properly.

[irisblue]

16. I need a chocolate fix now...LOL

Last edited Sat Jan 26, 2013, 12:21 PM - Edit history (1)

[warrior1]

17. Sorry if this is a silly question

but is this looking towards the center of the Milky Way or towards the edge?

[panzerfaust]

23. Towards the center

we are towards the edge

[bigtree]

25. that looks like a really dangerous predicament for Earth

. . . in ultra, ultra, super slo-mo.

[cemaphonic]

32. especially since the center of that spiral is a supermassive black hole

millions of times larger than the sun.

Not to worry though, the sun will go through its red giant phase, burning the earth to a crisp, long before we are in any danger of falling into a black hole.

[thucythucy]

45. That is just SO reassuring!

[rustydog]

50. Carl Sagan said it best:

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different.

Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us.

On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. "
Carl Sagan

[MzShellG]

20. Simply amazing!

How can this be seen by us regular folk?

[marybourg]

30. Identify a dark sky site, either through a local astronomy club

(google astronomy and your town) or through a dark sky website (less reliable, but there are several on the web), go there before dark, dress appropriately and carry emergency supplies (dark sites, by definition are remote),look up. Enjoy.

[panzerfaust]

21. I really, really miss Mt Rain

Thanks for posting this.

[classof56]

24. Thanks to you for posting this gorgeous scene.

Beauty abounds in the Cascades, huh?

[rustydog]

48. Is that lake Tipsoo?

I haven't been there in decades!

[JaneyVee]

22. Probably my favorite galaxy of all time. Although I may be a bit biased towards it.

[allan01]

27. re:Milkyway Over Mount Rainier

oooh ahhhhh. looks like th e galaxy is spewing out of the volcano to me ! thanks for posting

[Ron Obvious]

28. I remember the first time I saw the Milky Way

I still remember the first time I saw the Milky Way. I was about 18 or so, camping in the New Mexico desert on a moonless night. I woke up in the middle of the night, got out of my tent and well, there it was.

I was literally dumbstruck and stared, openmouthed, for hours. I'd never been far enough away from city lights to know that such a sight was even a possibility. I'd seen stars before, but I'd never seen stars...

The word 'awesome' should be reserved for sights such as that.

[BootinUp]

31. Thats a keeper. nt

[Ian Iam]

33. Lower the curtain down on Memphis

Lower the curtain down, all right...

[Terra Alta]

34. beautiful.

I've saved it as the background on my phone.

[treestar]

35. That is something else

I don't think I've really seen the milky way! Too much time in urban areas!

[WillyT]

36. K & R !!!

[DhhD]

38. A 2014 Calendar of 12 shots of the Milky Way would be on my list. This one could be October.

[AtheistCrusader]

39. Wow. I live a couple hours away, and I've never seen this.

That is amazing.

[Junkdrawer]

40. I don't think you would see exactly that with the unaided eye

For shots like this, you need long exposure times and a rock steady tripod.

Nowadays, it's hard to find skies dark enough to see such things.

On edit:

Found this by the photographer:

http://www.davemorrowphotography.com/p/tutorial-shooting-night-sky.html

[AtheistCrusader]

41. Sure, the human eye isn't nearly a sensitive.

Still be pretty bright in person. You should be able to see the banding of the milky way.

[Junkdrawer]

43. As a kid in the 70s, I hitched across the US camping as I went...

I seem to remember a night in Idaho.....

[Harry Monroe]

55. Au contraire!!

I am a retired Merchant Mariner and have seen the Milky Way many a time in all it's glory on a 0000-0400 night watch in the middle of the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean when the moon is new. Believe me, it does look quite like this. And it makes me feel quite small and insignificant.

[Cha]

44. Our Universe is sooo Beautiful!

Thanks bigtree!

[thucythucy]

46. Beautiful beyond words. Nt.

[rustydog]

47. An astronomically stellar eruption!

Excellent photograph

[SemperEadem]

51. my daughter just got a job up in Washington State

I'll send her the link to this. Lucky girl!!!

[Liberal_Dog]

52. K & R

Simply spectacular.

[cbrer]

53. Gorgeous, and humbling. Thanks! nt

[sheshe2]

54. Simply,

Beautiful!

[samsingh]

56. kick

[Timbuk3]

57. Awesome! n/t

[kwassa]

58. This photo looks like a composite of at least two different photos ....

and some other effects. This is, in essence, photoshopped.

First photo, Milky Way. Second, Mt. Ranier, which has a mysterious light source illuminating it's slopes in the middle of the night from the upper right somewhere. It actually looks like a daytime shot that is filtered down for a nighttime look. Third, what is the glow behind the mountain on the horizon? Sunset? Seattle?

I've seen the Milky Way in the high Rockies, and stars are never bright enough to photograph without time exposures, and are very hard to see anywhere there is ambient light from cities, or sunsets, or the fake moonlight illuminating the slopes of Ranier.

I suspect the meteor effects were also added.

[chillfactor]

60. put a sock in it.........................

[dmorrow32]

64. I don't remember doing any of the stuff you said when I took the photo

Hi,

I took a quick screen shot of all the pics I took that night, I made it black and white so no one can take the pictures. As you can see it is not fake. In response to your statements which really go to show you don't know a thing about night photography so please stop misleading people that may actually want to learn something about the subject.
http://davemorrowphotography.smugmug.com/Other/Before/26039190_kJgzNg#!i=2339440685&k=jCSrwPC&lb=1&s=A

1) If the moon was out then how would the Milky Way be so visible? I took this on a night with no moon, also known as the new moon. Anyone that takes night photos of the Milky Way knows this... the ground is light because I took a long exposure....
2)The glow comes from Seattle and Portland, and can not be seen by the naked eye, only a camera during a long exposure.
3) All RAW photos taken with pro model cameras must be processed using photoshop, this in now way means they are fake. It is a digital darkroom.
4) The shot is made from 1 single RAW file taken with my Nikon D800.

Thanks to everyone else for the great comments!

Dave

[kwassa]

68. What is the source of light on the section of the mountain facing us?

The glow behind the mountain can easily seen as city lights in the distance. That can't be the source of light for the front of the mountain.

[chillfactor]

59. this is truly an astounding shot.....

thank you fot posting it!

[kwassa]

62. of course it is astounding.

It's fake.

[dmorrow32]

63. Thanks for all the great comments.

Hi All, Just saw the link back to this site on my website analytics, thanks for all the great comments I really appreciate it!

Dave

[hrmjustin]

65. Welcome to DU my friend!

[dmorrow32]

66. Thank you!

Thanks

[bigtree]

67. thanks for that shot

truly astounding, inspiring.

Thanks for looking in. The response from folks here has been stellar!