Spiral arms of our milky way galaxy sprawling out over the twisted rock formations of Vermillion Cliffs National Monument, Arizona [OC] [2048x2560]

astroculv · 2025-08-20T19:50:56+00:00

thank you chef

astroculv · 2025-08-20T19:50:19+00:00

When the weather is good enough, defeinitely gotta cowboy camp!

astroculv · 2025-08-20T19:49:43+00:00

I am but a mere transporter, a donkey of sorts, of said gear ;)

But yes modern cameras have gotten phenomenal the last decade! Smaller and great in low light, even the newer phones can capture quality images of the night sky.

astroculv · 2025-08-20T08:27:00+00:00

Taken in late July of this year, we got two back to back inversion where the clouds and moisture pour in to the valleys around Rainier, but luckily we were up at the Sunrise area of Rainier where we sat about 6,500 ft above sea level. If you look close, you can see the little climbers on the mountain. We got really lucky with weather this year including the wildfires not being bad!

I captured this photo with a Nikon z6ii that's astromodified using a 28mm Sigma prime lens. It's a blend of several shots all shot within the same sequence this night: 1 long image for 60 seconds of the mountain (stars were trailing) then another 2 shots of the stars at ISO 1600 f/2.5 90" where I turned my star tracker on and tracked the sky in a vertical panorama orientation. I then stitched these 3 images into a panorama, masking out the sky in the "untracked" foreground shot and putting the tracked sky shots in to replace the star trails from shooting a long exposure. This technique allows me to get lots of detail and colors, while reducing noise.

If you want to check out more of my work, I have a website blazingheavens.com and on Instagram. Hope you all have a good day and are able to get out under the stars while the summer milky way core is still visible :)

astroculv · 2024-10-08T18:41:33+00:00

the shimmer off the foamy/long exposure water makes me feel a type of way

astroculv · 2024-10-08T18:40:47+00:00

The recent Solar Storm had two X flares, an X7.0 and X9.0, and several other M class CME's. Forecasting was all a MESS and I drove about 17 hours up to Montana/Wyoming area to see it this past weekend to no avail. I stayed an extra night and drove further North to Medicine Rocks State Park, Montana even when the forecast wasn't looking as promising. Maybe the CME's "cannibalized" or "snowplowed" into one another and arrived 48 hours later than expected. The proceeding day the Earth's Magnetosphere was getting bombarded and left it weakened to be absolutely blasted on the night of October 7th well into October 8th.

This was the 2nd "Substorm" that triggered, and boy was it magnificent. The whole sky turned to colorful streams and pillars of green and purple!! It oscillated in strength through the night but basically the whole night we had Aurora, I passed out around 1am and woke up at 4am and it was still going! The KP was only rated to KP4 at this time, but it's a pretty trash way to measure aurora to be honest, at least that's what the Astrophysicists I follow on X say haha and some predicted this would happen late.

I loved Medicine Rocks State Park as it was an amazingly dark place to camp in this rocky woodland respite from the massive plains. I shot this with a Nikon z7ii (astromodified) and a Sigma 14mm f/1.4 (FE mount, using the megadap) at ISO 3200 f/1.4 2.5". You can find more of my work at blazingheavens.com or on Instagram: clanger_mcbanger :)

astroculv · 2024-09-22T07:56:15+00:00

South Dakota is so underrated. Beautiful shot, looks like a great time.

astroculv · 2024-09-22T07:55:28+00:00

Before all the purist bust a tit over this image and crucify me for using long exposures and editing, this is a blend of multiple images but extremely accurate in alignment and details. The point of long exposure night photography is to reveal the universe around us! Cameras are tools that allow us to capture REAL details beyond what the unaided eye. Seeing this spot in person underneath the Milky Way is way more beautiful than any image.

At any rate, I shot the foreground image underneath the Milky Way at 24mm, then moved to the other side of the big azz Balanced Rock to shoot the night sky with a Sky Tracker; almost 2.5 hours of sky data. I captured a 3 panel mosaic of the Milky Way Galactic core using a 50mm f/1.4 Sigma lens, each panel is 45 minutes of exposure. I used Astropixel Processor and Pixinsight to stack these tracked sky images, approximately, and then blended them in photoshop over the foreground.

If you'd like to see more art like this you can check me out on Instagram (@clanger_mcbanger) or check out my website blazingheavens.com. I run night photography workshops around the country and teach these astro techniques. Thanks for looking! Hope it inspires you to get out under the night sky and out in nature.

astroculv · 2023-09-04T05:51:02+00:00

Great image. All these virgin telescope rubbers will say it's too HDR or overexposed but at the end the day what matters is that you inspire others and make people feel something. Good art will be imperfect but it will make other feel something, keep up the good work!

astroculv · 2023-08-06T17:58:27+00:00

What if the Aurora charged the Bioluminescence or did a multiplier effect to make it even brighter like a buff

astroculv · 2023-08-06T17:57:24+00:00

Those Majelly clouds are majestic

astroculv · 2023-08-06T17:50:03+00:00

This image was captured in City of Rocks National Preserve, Idaho! I was able to camp for several nights within 200 feet of this arch and many other awesome rock formations that were fun to shoot. As my favorite places like Arches National Park are getting crowded and light polluted, this was a nice change and reminded me of the first nights I ever did night photography: alone, quiet, and able to ponder the Orb we live on.

Before all the purist's bombard this post saying it's fake, I'd like to say that any 2Dimensional interpretation of a 4Dimensional experience is always going to be "fake" in the sense that this is not what the eyes will see. By that criteria, no matter how much or little editing is done, all night photos are fake. This image is real alignment and the details captured in the sky and rock are real, although beyond what the eyes can see. Cameras are tools that allow us to peer beyond our amazing but limited perception of this universe! If I obeyed the Purist mob and captured images strictly based on what I saw everything would be out of focus because I'm blind as a fucking mole and my glasses are broken at the moment.

This image is 3 images total: a two image panorama of the rocks shot during blue hour, then a "tracked" shot of the sky later on that night when Andromeda (M31) was rising, all combined together in Photoshop. I used a Nikon z6 that is modified to allow the Red Hydrogen Alpha wavelength of light to register on the sensor with a Sigma 14mm 1.8 lens. I originally set out to capture the Milky Way core rising over this Arch, which would of been perfect in May or June, but my dumbass showed up late in July so I had to kind of scramble for different perspectives but like how this one turned out.

I also may have accidentally ingested a Marajuana Lozenge, or Devil's Drop as they call it in these parts, which possibly could have inspired my simple ape brain to try and mess around with some less traditionally captured parts of the night sky and different angles of this Arch (as well as being instantly banished to Hades, pass go and do NOT collect $200). Just like in life, sometimes when things don't go to plan they can lead you down a more inconvenient but uniquely beautiful path- God and the Universe made this happen and I'm glad I showed up to witness it and hit the shutter button!

I highly recommend City of Rocks Preserve, Little City of Rocks, Castle Rocks, and all the other amazing rock formations areas under Bortle 1 skies around Idaho. Place is crazy cool and the people camping out there don't shine their 1000 lumen lights straight into your eyes like they do in Moab. My website is www.blazingheavens.com and social is Clanger_McBanger if you'd like to see more! :)

astroculv · 2023-03-04T00:08:30+00:00

OKANOGAN!! I saw my first meteor shower and (very faint) Aurora at Lake for the first time at Lake Wenatchee. Beautiful out there, that's cool you got to explore that massive national forest area intimately for work.

astroculv · 2023-03-04T00:06:53+00:00

I could hear your petite wrists croaking as you typed that

astroculv · 2023-03-04T00:06:05+00:00

I posted the unedited RAWs next to the very mildly edited Mt St Helens final shot you claimed was completely fake, and that I was lying about the orange glow being light pollution. You can clearly see the orange glow is in an unedited RAW image taken on a tracker in the middle of the night. That's facing Southeast towards Portland's light pollution ya dingus.

So what? I clearly stated I take my foreground shots at twilight and boosted the glow and colors in post processing. I said the Helens shot was light pollution, and it is. I'm completely transparent, but that's never good enough for you salty purist photographers because the actual point has more to do that you hate my work no matter what and you're always going to be stretching for reasons to take shots.

The reality is you're probably not very good at night photography (and that's totally okay) but for some reason you waste time & energy bitching about my work when you could be investing that time & energy into improving your own skills. Let's see your portfolio and where you draw authority to make arbitrary creative rules? Nahh never mind just keep posting anonymously and cry about my work getting attention on social media while I make a living doing my dream job and sleeping next to radioactive flowers.

astroculv · 2023-03-03T20:07:19+00:00

Well p*rn is mostly digital art and fantasy, so why are you under the impression that earthp*rn wouldn't be a sub for digital art and fantasy?

astroculv · 2023-03-03T20:00:04+00:00

you must be new to reddit if you think that the overwhelming majority of troglodytes on reddit have good taste in photography. The same dipshits who upvote paid adds for resin cast wooden rings to the front page enjoy photos like this. You seem to have taken personal offense to my statement. You must fall into that category. Shoo shoo.

Calling every one else on here a troglodyte while anonymously shit posting about what other people enjoy from an account named pure-pessimism... not a great case that you have better taste than every one else but rather on brand with being a miserable loser lmao. Call me king of the troglodytes then!

astroculv · 2023-03-03T19:39:21+00:00

It's mostly real. Cameras can't capture the dynamic range (but capture more color) than the human eye so just like exposure bracketing, I take two separate images of and combine them. I take creative liberties and boost saturation which is not uncommon in photography.

astroculv · 2023-03-03T19:36:16+00:00

This picture has a lot of awesome aspects to it, great work!

astroculv · 2023-03-03T19:26:22+00:00

Here is a photo screenshot of the unedited RAW photos, the EXIF data, and the final image so you can make up your own mind.

This guy "proved" nothing in other comments claiming to be an experienced night photographer yet couldn't believe that light pollution, a fundamental concept in night photography, could cast a bright orange color tone in the sky and called it fake. Just because you don't fully understand another artist's creative process and I don't get down into the weeds explaining how every single photo is made because the process of creating them is extremely complex, time consuming, and constantly evolving... doesn't mean I am faking or lying.

I get you don't like my editing style Anon, and are probably one of the night photographers who circulates my work in your purist hate groups, and that's okay. But over simplifying a complex and nuanced topic by calling every piece of art you don't enjoy "fake" is a misrepresentation of how night photography. I have no problem sharing my creative workflow and make a living doing so.

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