Milky Way Arch over Mupe Bay

The Milky Way arching over Mupe Bay in Dorset just after 4am. Deep in Lulworth military ranges, this viewpoint has some of the darkest skies in southern England.

I chose my viewpoint to incorporate the foreground rock ridges as leading lines, a rock pool reflecting the Milky Way and the distinctive sea stack on the right hand side.

The image comprises a panorama of six overlapping frames taken with a 14mm wide angle lens (in portrait orientation) to give a 180 degree field of view. Each frame comprises a panel of 14 exposures of 15 seconds at f/2 and ISO 12,800 for the sky plus one exposure of four minutes for the foreground. I also had to shoot one sky panel at ISO 3200 to retain detail in the bright cloud reflecting light from Wareham, nine miles to the north-east. The individual panels were stacked in Sequator, then each foreground was individually merged using Photoshop layers and finally the panorama was stitched using PTGui.

Hence the image represents 52 minutes of exposure time (and rather longer in processing time).