Andromeda and El Capitan by Justin Kern

Here’s a really composite image by Justin Kern of Yosemite Valley and a really good composite of the Milky Way. I call it a composite image because it’s not one image but a series that Justin meticulously corrected and stitched together to make one final beautiful image.

Justin: “Last September, I was in the Yosemite valley for a bit and grabbed an astrophotograph/panorama that I called “We are Killers.” It remains one of my favorites. At the same time, I tried to grab a single image a bit earlier in the evening of the watch lamps of camping climbers, strung along the face of El Capitan with the Milky Way above. Most of what I grabbed simply didn’t work. I opted out of posting it for a long time because, in an effort to “rescue” the image, I killed it. It has some fantasy appeal – it isn’t an altogether terrible image. Just overcooked. Now, you can almost see the thought process – the last two images on this poster were taken with the exact same settings. I must have learned something from the first processing attempt!”

Justin put a lot of time and work into making this beautiful image. Take a look at Justin’s “We are Killers” writeup and you can see step by step the process behind creating this awesome image.

Photo by Justin Kern.