Orion and Fallen City
There’s perhaps no better way to practice social distancing and clear your head than to spend some time under the stars. The idea for this picture came months ago: to capture Orion setting over this jumble of giant boulders called the Fallen City. After doing the math and simulating the view, I determined exactly where to put my tripod and when to make it happen. But one problem is this is a very windy spot in the Bighorn Mountains. My attempt in February was foiled by the wind and I could not get any clear images. But March brought another chance with calmer weather. A fresh snowfall topped with rime ice made the forest glow in the starlight.
The Orion Nebula is the brightest in Earth’s sky. It can be seen with the naked eye from dark skies and looks spectacular in a telescope. Also visible next to Orion’s Belt are the Flame Nebula and Horsehead Nebula. To get this picture first I took a series of images of the sky with my camera on a star-tracking mount. Once the nebula set, I turned the tracking off and took a longer exposure of the foreground.
- Copyright
- Kevin Palmer
- Image Size
- 5150x6438 / 30.6MB
- Keywords
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2020, Bighorn Mountains, Bighorn National Forest, Dayton, Fallen City, Flame Nebula, March, Orion, Orion's Belt, Orion's Nebula, United States, Wyoming, astronomy, astrophotography, boulders, clear, cold, dark, ioptron skytracker, kevin palmer, night, nightscape, nikon 180mm f2.8, nikon d750, pink, purple, red, sky, snow, snowy, space, spring, stacked, starry, stars, tamron 24-70mm f2.8, telephoto, trees
- Contained in galleries
- Recent Work, Deepscapes, Wyoming, Night Sky
