Ancient Civilisations by abirkill

Ancient Civilisations

After getting my feet well and truly soaked yesterday evening, it seemed like a good idea to go and stand in near-freezing temperatures for a couple of hours, just up the coast at Porteau Cove Provincial Park.

With a strong wind blowing it was extremely cold, but the first clear night we've had in weeks provided an incredible view.

This is a 5 photo panorama stitched using Hugin, each image taken at ISO 8000, 16mm, for 45 seconds. Due to the projection I had to use to get this to be displayed on a flat screen, it's not as high resolution as that might suggest -- only about 35 megapixels. The projection is also responsible for the slightly curved 'spires' on the right hand side.

This is my first attempt at a night sky panorama, and as expected, it's somewhat tricky due to the stars moving and the ground not!

I was extremely pleased with how the Milky Way turned out, and the Big Dipper is clearly visible near the horizon just to the right of centre. Light domes are from the cities of Nanaimo (I think) on the left and Squamish on the right.

The processing might be a little excessive, even by my 'turn it up to 11' standards, but I couldn't stop myself bringing out more detail!

I'd very highly recommend viewing this large!

Featured on the BBC News reader-submitted photo page for the theme 'Skies': http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-21040639
Amazing!!! Fav, of course!!!
November 10th, 2012  
Completely amazing especially viewed large. Fav!

Thank you also for the explanation of how you did this.
November 10th, 2012  
Pretty damn incredible... A pleasure to hit the fav button :-)
November 10th, 2012  
Wow, wow, wow...I'm speechless!! Fav!
November 10th, 2012  
Wow work of art. You've really got the star shots nailed.
November 10th, 2012  
Beautiful
November 10th, 2012  
How incredible! FAV!
November 10th, 2012  
WOW! Truly speechless! FAV!!
November 10th, 2012  
Very cool
November 10th, 2012  
totally spectacular... FAV!
November 10th, 2012  
Exceptional
November 10th, 2012  
Wow, there are no words to describe this. Amamzing!!!
November 10th, 2012  
wow amazing! fav!
November 10th, 2012  
Wow. Amazing. Worth the cold
November 10th, 2012  
Oh but so worth your frozen fingers Im sure. Magic shot Alexis.
November 10th, 2012  
Really spectacular!
November 10th, 2012  
Just amazing!
November 10th, 2012  
Excellent work of art, Im amazed with your devotion to your hobby.
November 10th, 2012  
Fav. Wow
November 10th, 2012  
What can I say......A FAV!
November 10th, 2012  
awesome shot :D
fav too!
November 10th, 2012  
Wow. Words seem silly. FAV.
November 10th, 2012  
I'm with all the rest WOW! Amazing! Fav! What more can I say. LOL
November 10th, 2012  
Incredible! Fav
November 10th, 2012  
Oh my word! Is that a shooting star or a plane bottom left? What a shot! Love your part of the world.
November 10th, 2012  
Seems to be popular!!!!!!! Directed here by HH and really worthwhile.....what an incredible scene, what devotion to photography ie chilblains! just fantastic, a very worthwhile job! +fav
November 10th, 2012  
@judithg That's a plane -- surprisingly I don't seem to have captured any shooting stars in this. Another shot I took that night has three, all in a 30 second exposure!
November 10th, 2012  
@abirkill Jealous - just of you being there let alone the photo!
November 10th, 2012  
Simply stunning shot.
November 10th, 2012  
Been sent over by Humphrey Hippo to take a look. A-MAZ-ING - don't know where to start with telling you how absolutely fabulous this pic is, so will just leave it at A-MAZ-ING! Oh and - FAV!
November 10th, 2012  
Kim
Amazing!!!
November 10th, 2012  
WOW! FAV!
November 10th, 2012  
Stunningly amazing. Words fail me! Fav for sure!
November 10th, 2012  
I'm with everyone else. Wow and fav!!!
November 10th, 2012  
Absolutely beautiful. Great composition, and persistence. Fav!
November 11th, 2012  
Love the processing. Looks so magical
November 11th, 2012  
Fabulous.
November 11th, 2012  
Breathtaking shot! Fav.
November 11th, 2012  
Amazin! Fav
November 11th, 2012  
Gorgeous!
November 11th, 2012  
Brilliant! Fav!
November 11th, 2012  
You're truly an artist! Fav.
November 11th, 2012  
Wow! Amazing!
November 11th, 2012  
Wow! Stunning.........fav :)
November 11th, 2012  
Instant Fav. Wow, what an amazing shot. It's just breath taking. Great shot. Love it.
November 11th, 2012  
Breathtakingly out of this world, Alexis.. FAV,,,wow!
November 11th, 2012  
Absolutely Fav.
November 12th, 2012  
Amazing
November 12th, 2012  
Fantastic shot. Congrats on the PP!
November 12th, 2012  
So beautiful! Wow! Instant fav!
November 12th, 2012  
this is just amazing. Big Big Fav
November 12th, 2012  
Wow, this is so extraordinary! I think you deserve a first place in the official top 20 :) Fav for me, too, the bigger version is just breathtaking!
November 12th, 2012  
Breathtaking! fav
November 12th, 2012  
absolutely amazed!! ~ FAV FAV FAV !! ~~ I see the dipper :-)
November 12th, 2012  
Wow - this is absolutely amazing Alexis. Fav for sure. Wonderful.
November 13th, 2012  
Incredible, I'm speechless. +F
November 13th, 2012  
that is awesome!
November 14th, 2012  
Stunning!!! A Fav for me!
November 15th, 2012  
wow fav.....
November 15th, 2012  
Outstanding stuff
November 15th, 2012  
Spectacular shot! A fav for sure!
November 15th, 2012  
stunning doesn't begin to describe this... fav!
November 16th, 2012  
Awesome on every level! Fav :)
November 16th, 2012  
Wow....incredible....fav and follow =)
November 17th, 2012  
Fantastic result. fav.
November 17th, 2012  
Congratulations on number two for the week, very well deserved - spectacular photograph and a FAV and a follow!
November 18th, 2012  
Just saw this on top 20. Congrats! What type place is that? It looks like an electrical station...reminds me of the movie The Prestige with all its Tesla references this is stunning!
November 18th, 2012  
Fav.!
November 18th, 2012  
did the sky look like that with the naked eye or is it something you were only able to bring out with your camera and processing? Its absolutely incredible.
November 18th, 2012  
@espyetta Porteau Cove, as well as a provincial park, is an emergency ferry terminal. Ferries would dock at the bridge-like structure at the left of the photo, with access to the land being along the dock running along the bottom of the photo.

The Sea to Sky highway runs at the foot of of the mountains, and has the Howe Sound immediately to the other side. In the event of an avalanche or landslide, the road could be closed for days or even weeks. The ferry terminal provides the ability to bypass such a closure by linking either to Squamish, to the north, or Horseshoe Cove, to the south.

Without this provision, communities such as Squamish and Whistler would lose easy access to the lower mainland in the event of a closure. As an example, Squamish is about an 65km/1 hour drive from downtown Vancouver. The fastest alternative route by paved road, should the Sea to Sky highway be closed, is 512km/7 hours.

As this happens so rarely, the dock is open to the public and provides various viewing platforms, one of which this photo was taken from.

@jsw0109 There is still quite a lot of ambient light even here, and relatively speaking, the night wasn't particularly ideal for viewing the Milky Way (atmospheric transparency not being as high as it can be). Therefore some processing was required to bring out the Milky Way to this degree.

This primarily consisted of careful application of curves layers to darken the overall glow in the sky and brighten the stars, as well as colour temperature adjustments to keep the sky blue while not turning the foreground structures totally orange (as they are lit only by distant sodium lamps).

Use of the clarity adjustment brush in Adobe Camera Raw was also used to selectively bring out more star detail.
November 18th, 2012  
@abirkill its very wild... all I ever see are stars in the sky and astronomy fascinates me, so seeing the night sky like that is a real treat!
November 18th, 2012  
I am in Awe... the beauty is amazing.. incredible. Favd
November 18th, 2012  
@jsw0109 The Milky Way was certainly visible with the naked eye -- if I hadn't been fiddling around with the camera (both the viewfinder display and reviewing the shots for sharpness kills night vision) I suspect it would have been very clear, but even without that it was quite easy to spot.

If you do want to see it (even just by eye, rather than taking photos) two useful resources are the Dark Sky map, which shows where you might find good dark sky conditions locally (away from artificial light):
http://www.jshine.net/astronomy/dark_sky/

And the clear sky chart for your area, which forecasts the weather conditions for the next 48 hours, with particular focus on cloud cover, atmospheric transparency, darkness (based on whether the moon is up or not), and ability to see fine detail:
http://cleardarksky.com/csk/index.html#chart_list
November 18th, 2012  
@abirkill thank you!
November 18th, 2012  
@abirkill thanks for the information! Sounds like a great place for several reasons!
November 18th, 2012  
Superb shot for #2 Alexis....Great work.
November 18th, 2012  
Stunning and instant FAV!
November 19th, 2012  
Totally worth it. Amazing.
November 21st, 2012  
Increible!!!!!! debo aprender mucho para tomar una igual......
November 22nd, 2012  
Oh.My.Goodness. This is AMAZING! FAV!
November 23rd, 2012  
Congrats on your top 10 finish this week! Very well deserved!
November 24th, 2012  
Oh woww this is so awesome! And I think I see a shooting star at the bottom left!
November 25th, 2012  
Went to the Veolia Wildlife photographer exhibition at the Natural History museum in London last year... one of the shots was like this and yours is just as lovely and just as good! Glorious shot
November 25th, 2012  
Wow. Amazing photo. Not much more to add!
November 26th, 2012  
wow! stunning and a FAV!
November 27th, 2012  
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