CELESTIAL THRONE

Mangart saddle, Slovenia

Nature always has an upper hand. Uroš Fink and I started to plan and discuss this composition in December of 2020, but there were still many unknown factors in play - such as the accessibility of the location, because there was still snow on the road leading up to the saddle. In the past few years, the road got opened in mid May, but this year if feels like all four seasons shifted for a month. Also, July is the last month when a pano like this one is possible. Luckily, the road was cleared all the way on the very same day we decided to go, tho constant changes in weather forecast made us think we should postpone our trip for a day. But on the end we decided to give it a go, since the forecast for next day didn't promise any better conditions.

When we parked the car, we were greeted with a few clouds (and a free coffee from the caretaker of the hut at the saddle).

Wind was just relentless on our location - because of that, my original plan to use a star tracker was out of the window, so I had to do untracked panorama shots with my 35mm lens. I set my exposure time to 15 seconds. I knew this would give me some star trails, but that is not a problem if you are going for a huge panorama, because everything shrinks down (even the noise is not as visible). All in all it was absolutely great experience - it was great to meet Uroš in person for the first time after chatting online for quite some time now. I am also very very happy how this image turned out (this is in fact my first "serious" panorama).

The road to the Mangartsko Sedlo is the highest-lying road in Slovenia, climbing up an elevation of 2,072 metres (6,798 feet) above the sea level. The Mangart Pass is located on the border between Italy and Slovenia in the Julian Alps.

Mangart is the name of the mountain range between the Koritnica Valley and the Mangart Valley, with the highest peak Veliki Mangart (Big Mount Mangart - the mountain in the middle of the composition), 2,679 m (8,789 ft). Starting in Bovec, roads to get the summit are number 203 and number 902. Both have many switchbacks, tunnels, hairpins, and a wild average percent in many sections. According to several informations, this is the highest road in the country.

CATEGORY & EXIF

blend - untracked 56 images panorama

Nikon D600 & Tamron 35mm 1.4 SP

Landscape: panorama - 2 rows x 14 images per row, ISO 640, f1.6, 10sec. Landscape images were taken at blue hour.

Sky : panorama - 2 rows x 14 images per row, ISO 1250, f2, 15sec

Post:

Basic adjustments in LR, stitching in PTGui. Initial post for the sky was done in Pixinsight, finished of in Photoshop, where I also done the post for landscape and merged the two parts together.