Image: On the Shores of Ancient Earth

This is a stitch of 15 shots with a Canon 50mm f/1.2 lens (@f/1.8) using an EOS6D. All shots were at ISO3200 for 30 seconds. This makes it a bit tricky for the stitching software, even when I used an iOptron tracking mount to keep the stars in the sky from trailing, as the interface between the sky and ground is usually not handled very well requiring some manual alignment. The final image was so large that couldn't even save it in Photoshop as it breached the 2GB limit. Even on this reduce resolution image you can zoom in heaps to see all the details in the stars and foreground.

Towards the end of my trip to the Peel region, Western Australia, I revisited the Thrombolites on Lake Clifton located at the north end of Yalgorup National Park. Thrombolites are built by tiny micro-organisms whose ancesters are believed to be one of the earliest known forms of life on Earth. They convert the fresh groundwater which is high in calcium carbonate into these dome like rocks that reside at the lake's edge. There are now few places left that Thrombolites remain. 

Last time I photographed here all the Thromobolites were under water, but now at the waning of summer the lake's water is low revealing them all in this eerie alien like landscape of dome rocks and mud. Taken after midnight, this image shows the southern milkyway night sky arcing over the prehistoric scene. At the very top (and suffering a fair bit of lens distortion) is the great Carina nebula looking like a pink flower. Tracing down there are a number of open clusters, like IC26012 "southern Pleiades" and NGC3532. Further down is the southern cross constellation, and then the dark sploge of the Coal Sack nebula. And then a little below are the two bright stars of Alpha and Beta Centaurai.

You can view and download a larger version of this image here!