Orion rising over the fjord (deepscape)

[Icesheet]

This image of Orion rising over Fusa Fjord in western Norway is my first attempt at deepscape imaging. For those not familiar with deepscapes, the aim is to provide an accurate representation of a landscape foreground with a deep sky object as the backdrop. So this is not a random composition. Orion rose above the fjord in this location on the night I captured the image.

I have been interested in this relatively uncommon genre of astrophotography for sometime and as the skies cleared in November after the rainiest October on record here, I got my chance. With the forecast of a clear night, I set about preparing for the job. I scouted possible locations and using the Stellarium and Ephemeris apps I was able to estimate when and where Orion would rise. Initially, I planned to shoot at 50mm to get as wide an image as I could, however the night I would be shooting (13th/14th Nov) had a 70% illuminated moon and I knew I would struggle to get good data. So, I changed plan to use my Askar FMA at 180mm as this would allow me to use my L-extreme filter to counter the moonlight. However, even still I underestimated the amount of planning required to capture the image and I have to admit this wasn't the composition I had planned. I hoped to catch Orion rising over a distance village that has a glacier as a backdrop but when Orion started appearing it quickly became apparent I had miscalculated where it would rise. Still, I'm delighted with what I got and learned a lot. I know this isn't everyone's cup of tea and it's hard to argue this is a natural looking image. However, I love the sense of scale you get when you see a well known deep sky object over a classic landscape foreground. For reference, the fjord rises from sea level to an altitude of around 650m and if you zoom in to the shore of the fjord you can see some little boat houses and other buildings.

 

The image itself is a two pane vertical mosaic captured on the same night from the same tripod location. All shot with a modded Canon 6D and Askar FMA180. Foreground was 4x240 180s sec ISO1600. Sky 30x120s tracked with L-extreme filter. I also collected 30mins of RGB data but it was not useful due to moonlight. Processed in PixInsight and Photoshop.

 

Happy to hear people's thoughts on it, good or bad!

Edited November 27, 2021 by Icesheet

[Icesheet]

Oops, can a mod move this to widefield imaging! Should not post at 5am! 😆

@Icesheet- done - fantastic image by the way. 

 

[Sunshine]

This is a beautiful image, we’ll done! I particularly like deep sky images displaying a foreground in them, they are striking.

[vlaiv]

I love the image.

I'm just slightly sad that it was not captured in one go - that would have been jaw dropping, however, I do appreciate level of preparation and effort that goes into getting the bits needed to do the composition.

[Scooot]

Lovely image, great to see the size of Orion etc in context.

[Icesheet]

Thanks all, and to the mod who moved and commented 😊

I’ve got such great landscapes here so I have some plans for others. Hopefully next time I’m a little better prepared and get the exact composition I want. 

Edited November 27, 2021 by Icesheet

[Scooot]

Out of interest 4 minutes for the foreground seemed quite long, to me anyway, did you use the filter for this as well? 

[Icesheet]

58 minutes ago, Scooot said:

Out of interest 4 minutes for the foreground seemed quite long, to me anyway, did you use the filter for this as well? 

No, no filter on the foreground. I double checked and it was actually 3 mins, sorry 🙈. I’ve shot in this location before and I need exposures as long as that to be able to lift the shadows without too much noise. Of course this is at the expense of blowing out the house and street lights. Perhaps I could use two different exposures on the foreground in the future. Edited my original post too. 

[Scooot]

1 minute ago, Icesheet said:

No, no filter on the foreground. I double checked and it was actually 3 mins, sorry 🙈. I’ve shot in this location before and I need exposures as long as that to be able to lift the shadows without too much noise. Of course this is at the expense of blowing out the house and street lights. Perhaps I could use two different exposures on the foreground in the future. Edited my original post too. 

No probs I was just curious.

You could also try 12 one minutes instead of 4 three minutes to reduce the blown out areas. 

[Icesheet]

1 minute ago, Scooot said:

No probs I was just curious.

You could also try 12 one minutes instead of 4 three minutes to reduce the blown out areas. 

That's an idea. Don't know why I didn't think of that. Thanks!

[Scooot]

1 minute ago, Icesheet said:

That's an idea. Don't know why I didn't think of that. Thanks!

Or less of course. You could take a test shot to see what exposure is best for an area near a light, don’t suppose you can do much about the lights themselves. 

[vlaiv]

Maybe add a bit of murk to the background Orion image close to mountain tops - to get a bit more realistic feel to it?

[Icesheet]

5 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Maybe add a bit of murk to the background Orion image close to mountain tops - to get a bit more realistic feel to it?

I did struggle balancing that transition to be honest. Tried a graduated filter on Lightroom but it didn't look right. Do you have any suggestions?

[vlaiv]

2 minutes ago, Icesheet said:

I did struggle balancing that transition to be honest. Tried a graduated filter on Lightroom but it didn't look right. Do you have any suggestions?

I guess you have those two as two layers?

Take Orion layer and put layer on top of it - select grey color. Add layer mask to that layer and create gradient in layer mask so that you get gradient opacity on it.

Adjust that layer transparency so that it does not start fully opaque.

That should do it.

 

[Icesheet]

1 minute ago, vlaiv said:

I guess you have those two as two layers?

Take Orion layer and put layer on top of it - select grey color. Add layer mask to that layer and create gradient in layer mask so that you get gradient opacity on it.

Adjust that layer transparency so that it does not start fully opaque.

That should do it.

 

Yes, two layers. Thanks, I'll give that a try 👍

[fwm891]

Might be better if you slightly softened/blur the focus on the foreground. Both being in focus makes them fight each other for dominance.

[Icesheet]

3 minutes ago, fwm891 said:

Might be better if you slightly softened/blur the focus on the foreground. Both being in focus makes them fight each other for dominance.

Yes, I agree they do. I will try that and what Vlaiv suggests to see if I can get a more natural transition from foreground to sky.

[fwm891]

Just now, Icesheet said:

Yes, I agree they do. I will try that and what Vlaiv suggests to see if I can get a more natural transition from foreground to sky.

A slight blur to the foreground layer will be enough. Visually although both could be taken individually as distant blur to the foreground will imply foreground/background. Just take the edge off not a heavy blur.

[vlaiv]

4 minutes ago, Icesheet said:

Yes, I agree they do. I will try that and what Vlaiv suggests to see if I can get a more natural transition from foreground to sky.

Here is quick editing example of what I meant:

I took that orange kind of glow - but you will probably want to balance it with other light sources in the image. Maybe I selected too orange / brown color for this.

this is how I handled it in Gimp - I added copy of layer - erased that top part and added uniform orange / brown to it and then added gradient mask to that part.

I controlled overall opacity of top layer to control the effect.

Edited November 27, 2021 by vlaiv

[Icesheet]

11 minutes ago, fwm891 said:

A slight blur to the foreground layer will be enough. Visually although both could be taken individually as distant blur to the foreground will imply foreground/background. Just take the edge off not a heavy blur.

10 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Here is quick editing example of what I meant:

I took that orange kind of glow - but you will probably want to balance it with other light sources in the image. Maybe I selected too orange / brown color for this.

this is how I handled it in Gimp - I added copy of layer - erased that top part and added uniform orange / brown to it and then added gradient mask to that part.

I controlled overall opacity of top layer to control the effect.

Great, I get the idea. Thanks. Appreciate these suggestions. I'll see how I get on and come back with it.

 

 

[Zummerzet_Leveller]

Loving this thread, something a bit different.  A great image too, with the recommendations seen here I think it will work out really well.

[fwm891]

Hope you don't mind I've had a play.

I split the image into upper lower parts, using a pen tool to cut across the top of the mountain range.

I've slightly darkened the lower half then where theres exposed rock I've used the dodge tool at 1% shadows to lighten these areas, then applied a surface blur (1px radius, threshold about 25). For the top half I've added a little saturation and contrast overal, then used the burn tool on highlights (2%) to bring back the detail in the trap area.

Edited November 28, 2021 by fwm891
Text added

[Icesheet]

3 hours ago, fwm891 said:

Hope you don't mind I've had a play.

I split the image into upper lower parts, using a pen tool to cut across the top of the mountain range.

I've slightly darkened the lower half then where theres exposed rock I've used the dodge tool at 1% shadows to lighten these areas, then applied a surface blur (1px radius, threshold about 25). For the top half I've added a little saturation and contrast overal, then used the burn tool on highlights (2%) to bring back the detail in the trap area.

No, not at all! I like what you have done 😊

I actually had a version similar to this (minus the foreground blur). However, I felt I needed to lift the shadows a bit in the foreground. If there was snow there (which there is now of course) I probably wouldn’t have.

I really do like what you’ve done with the sky though. A bit more contrast and saturation but not too much. 
 

Hoping I’ll get some time to touch up tonight or tomorrow.