Milky Way Arch over Halema'uma'u Crater (walkman)

Milky Way Arch over Halema'uma'u Crater

Milky Way Panorama over Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii. Panorama captured June 18, 2022 from the overlook at the former Jagger Museum on Crater Rim Drive.

My wife and I had tried to capture the Milky Way arch over the ocean at the end of the Chain of Craters Road but a persistent band of horizon-hugging clouds prevented that venture. So we returned to the caldera and drove along West Crater Rim Drive to the overlook by the former Jagger Museum overlooking Halema'uma'u, the active summit crater of Kilauea Volcano. It was nearly 11pm by that time so the Milky Way was fairly high in the sky. I was just barely able to capture the full arch using my Canon 7D Mark II/Rokinon 16mm lens in portrait mode. The panorama is composed of 7 single overlapping frames merged and processed in PhotoShop. The individual frames were ISO 3200 at 13 sec.

The "flames" from the volcano are not actually flames but just the steam released by the ongoing eruption several hundred feet below the crater rim visible from this vantage point. The lava below is quite red in color and the color was picked up by the 13 sec exposures. To actually see the eruption, you have to be on the opposite side of the caldera looking away from the Milky Way.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic failed
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5898533
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):