Starlink 27 and the Milky Way (wide)
Starlink v27 redux: the wide view.
My plan all along was to try (again) for a launch streak with the Milky Way as a background. I wasn't looking forward to repeating the shot from Beacon 42, but I thought it was my only (or at least the most convenient) option on the Mosquito Lagoon. Thanks to intel from the great Ben Cooper, I swung into the Biolab Road boat ramp on the way to Beacon 42. I hadn't run into any traffic on the way, and it was well after 2:00 am, so I was expecting to encounter maybe some alligators, at best.
Not only was the parking lot open, but I was surprised to find a sizable group of stargazers set up, probably there to try to catch the Chinese rocket that crashed to Earth last night. They were a friendly group, although I half expected them to get pitchforks and take to arms over the rocket sending 60 more of the alleged night-sky-wrecking Starlink satellites to orbit. By the 2:42 am launch, much of the group had departed. The few that stayed were excited and snapped photos of the rocket with their phones. (You can see them silhouetted by their cars.)
I captured this frame with a backup camera that was an afterthought, using a lens, the fish-eye, that I wish I had used on one of my "main" cameras, set up on tripods in the water off the (floating) dock (frame left). I like the fuller, arching view of the Milky Way (although I could do without the cars).
It was a beautiful scene, and congratulations to the SpaceX team for reaching the milestone of 10 successful reuses of an orbital class booster, the Falcon9 booster B1051.
Details:
Composite of two frames, both captured with a Canon 6D + Rokinon 12mm full-frame fish-eye lens, unmoved between frames. Frame 1 was for the Milky Way, shot at ISO3200, 25-secs, and f2.8, captured at 2:37 am. Frame 2 was for the streak, shot at ISO200, 301-secs, and f18 at 2:41 am (I opened the shutter and went to fuss over the camera in the water). They were stacked in PhotoShop, with final edits in Lightroom.
