Libby Flatts Observatory

[Jim Neville]

The pictures were from Libby Flatts observatory near Centenial Wyoming. The observatory is on the southern boarder of Wyoming overlooking a lightning storm in Colorado: my recollection it was with 14mm prime lense, F2.8, 20 Seconds, ISO 3200.

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

Nice!

 

[Astrnmrtom]

Great shots. Especially the one with the "tower" illuminated.

My first attempt at something similar was at an overlook at Bryce National Park. I brought my most powerful flashlight but it wasn't the right one to use. It had been very windy recently so the air was full of dust. Not only did it scatter the light from the flashlight, on long exposures the dust made the sky glow reddish.

This is 30sec at ISO 2000, a 12mm f/2.8 manual lens on my a6000.

While the flashlight puts out plenty of lumens, it's more of a flood than a narrow beam so the light was scattered by the dust. My smaller flashlight with a focusable beam would have been better for painting the Hoodoos. The glow behind the hill is from the little town of Tropic which is where we ended up camping a few days later. Second shot is of the Orion area looking West from the same lookout area. Same lens, same exposure but at ISO 1600. Did a tiny bit of foreground illumination with my red flashlight.

One thing that surprised me was the amount of air traffic in the sky above this area. Most were so faint I didn't see them with my naked eye but just about every one of my long exposure images from that night show streaks.

Tom

• ILCE-6000
• 30 sec
• ISO 2000

• ILCE-6000
• 30 sec
• ISO 1600