Serpentine Fire

The Milkyway Core rises over Serpentine Dam, Western Australia. I had been to Serpentine Dam about a year ago, but I can't recall so much light pollution on the eastern horizon. At first I thought it was a car headlight, but no it stayed constant throughout the shoot. Whilst not my first choice (I had driven to Mt Helena thinking that maybe there was a good view east, but there's not), Serpentine does allow you access along its length at night time unlike other dams in the area. However, you are prohibited from leaving the road / walkway which meant that despite wanting to capture more view of the lake and the galaxy reflection in its water, I was unable to due to the lip of the dam wall obscuring the view.

I used an iOptron sky tracking mount to take this 2 x 3 panel mosaic. A Canon EOS6d (modified) was used through a Canon 50mm f/1.2 lens stopped down to f/3.2. All camera and lens settings were kept the same for all panels, and all shots were taken one immediately after the other. The iOptron tracking mount was used for the sky and turned off for the foreground panels. Stitching in PTGui, colour balance and background neutralisation in Pixinsight, noise reduction, saturation and some brightness / contrast adjustment in Photoshop. Details below.

| IMG_8387 | 2018-04-20 | Serpentine Dam, Western Australia | EOS6D modified | Canon 50mm f1.2 | f/3.2 | UV/IR cut-filter | iOptron mount | ISO3200 | 30sec | 6 x panels |