The Milky Way casts its celestial glow upon the majestic Western Ghats
Story behind the picture
Living in bortle class 9 sky of Mumbai it is impossible to see any single star forget the milkyway galaxy, so me and my buddies were off to a bortle 3 sky location, which is roughly 180 km from my home. It was a tiring 5 bours journey but on site we were pleased to see a sparsely populated village and clean dark skies. We straight away camped out in the wilderness, few meters away from the village. Setup our gears and waited for the milkyway to rise behind the tall peaks of sahyadri mountains. The place is frequented by leopards so we were little spooked. After some chitchatting we saw two eyes glowing behind the nearby bushes, we were hesitant to go there so pointed our lights there only to find a harmless jungle cat staring at us. For a moment we felt that the leopard came to us to say 'Hi'
. After our anxious wait the milkyway rose behind the mountains and we were mesmerized by its beauty. Shot the milkyway with every camera that we had and got the best picture posted out of it.
Equipment
Canon 5d mark iv Camera
Samyang 14mm f2.8 Lens
Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Mount
Sirui ET-2004 Photography Tripod
Capture Details
Milkyway
Exposure: 180 Seconds Single Tracked Shot
800 ISO @ f2.8
Foreground
Exposure: 30 Seconds x 3 Shots
1600 ISO @ f5.6
Light Painted with Ulanzi VL49 RGB light
Light Painted by
K*F]Paresh KokateLocation
Samrad Village, Bhandardara, Maharashtra
March 2024
Processed in Photoshop and Lightroom
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