Milky Way and Roque De Los Muchachos Panorama

[Gerr]

This is one of the highlight images of my recent trip to this beautiful island in the Canaries. There is virtually no chance of me capturing the Milky Way Arc like this in the UK.

I took the image at 3am (10th Jan 2024) on top of the volcanic caldera, Roque De Los Muchachos, 8000ft high.  Canon6D, Rokinon 24mm lens. The sky was tracked. 

Foreground images (six taken in landscape orientation) at ISO 1600 120secs f2.8.

Sky Images (11 images in portrait orientation) at ISO1600 70secs f4.

Hydrogen alpha (4 images taken) at ISO3200 150secs f2.8.

Processed in Lightroom and blended in Photoshop CC.

Hope you like (CC's welcome).

Milky Way Panorama - Roque De Los Muchachos:

[Elp]

Wow this is fantastic 

[maw lod qan]

Very nice!

What does the volcanos name translate to?

[Xilman]

Rock of the boys.

The boys in question are several pinnacles of rock, now sadly eroded by tourists taking souvenirs.

Roque also means "rook" in the context of the game of chess.

 

[Xilman]

1 hour ago, Gerr said:

This is one of the highlight images of my recent trip to this beautiful island in the Canaries. There is virtually no chance of me capturing the Milky Way Arc like this in the UK.

I took the image at 3am (10th Jan 2024) on top of the volcanic caldera, Roque De Los Muchachos, 8000ft high.  Canon6D, Rokinon 24mm lens. The sky was tracked. 

Foreground images (six taken in landscape orientation) at ISO 1600 120secs f2.8.

Sky Images (11 images in portrait orientation) at ISO1600 70secs f4.

Hydrogen alpha (4 images taken) at ISO3200 150secs f2.8.

Processed in Lightroom and blended in Photoshop CC.

Hope you like (CC's welcome).

Milky Way Panorama - Roque De Los Muchachos:

Shame I didn't know you were coming over because I arrived back in LP on 11 January and we could have met up.

The lights of Los LLanos are visible (they shouldn't be, some people are breaking the law) and my house & observatory is hidden by the small peak to the left of Los Llanos.

Note also the colour and the unusual brightness of the sky to the south, Bortle 8/9 perhaps --- the orange Na glow in particular. We have been plagued by calima (translates as "dust") which blows in from the Sahara. A calima generally brings hot weather (it reached 26C towards the end of January here in El Paso, when 18C is more typical) and rather poor visibility. El Roque is above the inversion layer and so doesn't suffer too much but where I am is 760m above sea level and sometimes the naked eye limiting magnitude is around +1. When only two stars in Orion, Rigel and Betelgeuse, are visible to the naked eye, there's no point in trying to observe anything.

 

Edited February 5 by Xilman
Add final para.

[symmetal]

That's an excellect image. Well done.😊

Alan

[Gerr]

1 hour ago, Xilman said:

Shame I didn't know you were coming over because I arrived back in LP on 11 January and we could have met up.

The lights of Los LLanos are visible (they shouldn't be, some people are breaking the law) and my house & observatory is hidden by the small peak to the left of Los Llanos.

Note also the colour and the unusual brightness of the sky to the south, Bortle 8/9 perhaps --- the orange Na glow in particular. We have been plagued by calima (translates as "dust") which blows in from the Sahara. A calima generally brings hot weather (it reached 26C towards the end of January here in El Paso, when 18C is more typical) and rather poor visibility. El Roque is above the inversion layer and so doesn't suffer too much but where I am is 760m above sea level and sometimes the naked eye limiting magnitude is around +1. When only two stars in Orion, Rigel and Betelgeuse, are visible to the naked eye, there's no point in trying to observe anything.

 

Thanks Xilman, unfortunately I had to get the plane back to the UK!  Luckily for me that last night was great viewing with the ‘calima’ effect not effecting the image too much (I don’t mind a bit of red as long as it stays on the horizon level). I really wanted the Winter Milky Way Arc so am chuffed with what I managed. La Palma is a beautiful Island and I will like to return. My Airb&b base was Puntagorda about 800m up. Took 40mins to get to the top of La Palma from there.😀👍

[Xilman]

18 minutes ago, Gerr said:

La Palma is a beautiful Island and I will like to return. My Airb&b base was Puntagorda about 800m up. Took 40mins to get to the top of La Palma from there.😀👍

When you do, let me know. I plan to let out part of my place here to visitors but there is a lot of bureaucracy to overcome first.

Before buying Tacande Observatory, SWMBO and I stayed in a rather nice place in Puntagorda a couple of times. The bad wildfire of last year came right up to the edge of that villa but no further, so it is still in business AFAIK. The altitude sounds about right, so perhaps it was the same place.

[Gerr]

This is where I stayed. Steep track to get to it but lovely place.

Edited February 5 by Gerr
didn't want to advertise

[FenlandPaul]

Now that’s a special image! Congratulations - definitely a keeper and a wonderful memory. It’s fantastic. 👌

[Gerr]

2 hours ago, FenlandPaul said:

Now that’s a special image! Congratulations - definitely a keeper and a wonderful memory. It’s fantastic. 👌

Thank you. Order has been placed for a canvas print.

The image was also the main reason I went to La Palma - I just had to capture the Winter Milky Way with Orion on the inside of the Arc. Very pleased. 😀