I am involved in a personal competition with alexkc in the 2012 Free Study Marathon. I did not sign up for it last year, but this year I did and decided I would give it my best effort. The first half of the year, I wasn't as motivated as I am now. Currently, Alessandro is in 6th place and I am in 10th place in the marathon. As you all may know, we were team mates in the last WPL and we have helped each other along with advice on photos. So, counting this month, I only have 3 months left to try to beat his overall score and finish ahead of him. A daunting task.
This month, I learned about the meteor showers that were taking place. So, I headed up to the high country and spent the night shooting "stars" and "shooting stars". Turns out, shooting "shooting stars" are harder to shoot than lightning. I went out earlier in the day and bought a 2nd remote/timer shutter release so I could set up two cameras for the event. I had each one taking 15 to 19 second exposures one after the other for about 4 hours. This was from 2AM until about 7AM on Sat night at around 10,000 feet in the mountains. The keep rate on shooting stars was not very high and the ones I did capture were underwhelming at best. I learned that for some of them, it takes over a minute for them to cross the sky. Which means with 18 second exposures, they are captured in about 5 to 8 frames, each frame showing the advancement of the shooting star. I tried to combine some of those images, but not with any good results so far. I'll keep trying though.
So, this shot does not have any comets, but it does have awesome elements which I captured that night. What you are viewing is Mt. Bierstadt that tops out at 14,065 feet, and the Sawtooth ridge which leads over to another very tall peak. These mountains are all part of the Mt Evans massif. The light on the clouds is coming from Denver even though I was around 50 miles from Denver.
Some outtakes.
[Nov. 1st, 2012 01:19:53 PM]
Nov 1:
14 votes-7.82
24 votes-7.50
[Nov. 1st, 2012 02:15:08 PM]
29 votes-7.27 Interesting.
[Nov. 1st, 2012 02:35:19 PM]
31 votes-7.09. This by far the largest drop of any score since I have been on this site. I guess folks are really sick of star shots.
[Nov. 1st, 2012 05:35:32 PM]
36 votes-7.19 Hopefully, the fast voters have finished and life on DPC can resume as normal. Funny how voting goes sometimes, will never figure it out. Maybe my high scores this morning were not accurate either. It seems to always work out at the end of the day.
[Nov. 5th, 2012 03:35:00 PM]
83 votes-7.36 today, been on a roller coaster this week. Been surging to mid 7's only to drop to low 7's almost immediately! Almost too much to take sometimes. Turned the scores off, that didn't last long. My addiction.
[Nov. 7th, 2012 03:40:55 PM]
Final voting day.
106 votes-7.28
Lots of great comments! Thank you so much!
I was on the fence with adding the border.
Here is my reasoning...I think the entry viewing pages should have the black background surround button so the viewer can decide to view the image as is, or with a black surround. This is one image that would benefit with a black surround background in my opinion. So, I decided to add the border. I know I like it one some images and I don't on others.
Statistics
Place: 2 out of 225 Avg (all users): 7.2750 Avg (commenters): 8.6842 Avg (participants): 7.2000 Avg (non-participants): 7.4571 Views since voting: 3285 Views during voting: 260 Votes: 120 Comments: 41 Favorites: 3 (view)
Coming back to this since it's been in the back of my mind as a standout shot of the night stars from a totally dark area. I'm thinking of taking a drive, late evening, up to Haleakala in Nov to get some star shots during truly dark, high elevation skies. Something I've never done before. You game?
FYI, those minute+ long "shooting stars" are really satellites, and they fade to darkness as they enter Earth's shadow (especially the ones in polar orbits). In your outtakes, "Sawtooth venus meteor" looks like a satellite (although it may not be).
In years of observing, shooting stars are very brief, 1-2 seconds max, and have 'tails'- growing brighter, then dimmer. Sometimes they have color (green, pink, orange, yellow).
That said, your image here is lovely. The clouds add to the result.
Superb! Must admit I am one who is a little weary of sky shots as you note in one of your score tracking comments. A little weary of sunrise and sunset landscapes, too. And of slow shutter seascapes. And gorgeous drop macros. And beautifully lit, dramatic studio portraits. I could go on. But the truth is I cannot resist any of these when they are truly well done and this certainly is. Beautiful and worthy. Congratulations on the red, Dennis.
Woooooo! Congrats on the ribbon and great score for this awesome picture! Plus, I'm loving the competition between you and Alessandro!! Two months left boys...what is in store for this Month?!?! A trip to the mountains? A morning spent by the ocean???? Hmmmmm... :-)
This is easily my favourite of this month's free study, and the only 10 I've given. This has to be a ribbon winner... there is NOTHING about it that isn't great. Splendid effort!!!
Love the title here and much more to it than just stars. Very little land in this shot and it's hard to build an interesting enough shot mainly having the sky contribute to the viewing. Asking allot from it but I think you have pulled it off. Had the land been more dramatic..this would have been even better and surely a ribbon contender. Great work
THIS TOUCH MY HEART THE MOST, RE THIS MONTHLY 'FREE STUDY' CHALLENGE.... TOUCHES ALL MY SENSES AS WELL, AS EXCELLENT PROCESSING, AND VISUALLY PLEASING TO THE EYE... YES, I LOVE IT... A 10 FROM ME... FROM SHEZ...
I WILL BE BACK THATS FOR SURE...
Cosmic Brume
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