I Am But a Simple Man. Who Are You and What Do You Want?

[Bo Zarts]

I took this photo at 2:40 AM MDT on July 20, 2020, from Pinyon Peak fire lookout (elevation 9945 feet) in central Idaho. It was a moonless night. I had been shooting to the northwest trying to get some photos of the comet Neowise, when something caused me to swing the camera around on the tripod and shoot to the south.

Moonrise was not until 5:55 AM, and that was a new moon (0% of full). I don't really remember seeing any particularly bright stars or planets that night. I was shooting with a Sony A7-R4 with a 24-104mm Sony lens. This particular shot was a 20 second exposure at f/5.6 (ISO1600), at the wide end of the lens range (24mm).

I shot about 60 images over the period of an hour, mostly of the northwest sky. The next day, when I downloaded the images from the camera into Lightroom, about ten images appeared totally black (underexposed). I saved them, but did not bother looking at them again until a couple of days ago (11 months later).

Looking at those images again yesterday, the histograms indicated that there was something to the RAW files worth checking out, so I pushed the exposure in Lightroom and finished them in Photoshop. The developed view includes a silhouetted portion of the lookout on the left, the Milky Way galaxy, a glow over the mountains that must be Stanley, Idaho, and the two bright bodies.

With a 20 second exposure, could Jupiter - for example - blow out in aggresive post-processing to look this large? I would think that planets rising in the ecliptic plane would be higher at that point (about 160° from my position), and certainly not side-by-side in the horizontal.

But what do I know? I'm a simple man. Give me a minute to pack a toothbrush and some things and I'll go with you. Sigh.

Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness
Salmon-Challis National Frorest, Idaho
July 20, 2020

© 2020 Bo Zarts Studio

[HAB911]

1. Mindblowing

to a much lesser degree, I have revisited ignored photos to find some real gems.

Beautiful man!

[Bo Zarts]

2. A researched explanation from a Park Service friend ..

"That really bright object is Jupiter. I used SkySafari and went back to that date. And the object to the left of it is Saturn. Puto was just to the left of Jupiter but of couse it was to faint to show on your pictue. That bright area to the right is the Milky Way in the Sagittarius area and the bright center to our Milky Way galaxy."

[Buckeye_Democrat]

7. Yep, that's what I was going to reply.

https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/this-weeks-sky-at-a-glance-july-17-25-2/

Jupiter and Saturn (magnitudes –2.8 and +0.1, respectively) are at opposition this month: Jupiter on the night of July 13th, Saturn on the 20th. So they rise around sunset, loom low in the southeast in twilight, and climb higher as the evening grows late. Jupiter is brightest; Saturn is 7° to its lower left. Farther to Jupiter's right, look for the Sagittarius Teapot.

[Nevilledog]

3. Just beautiful.

[Beringia]

4. Beauty

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. All I can say: Ya done good, my dear Bo! Really good. Thank you! ♥

[Demovictory9]

6. I wish we could see the stars here - Southern California.

[alwaysinasnit]

8. Truly awesome! Thanks for sharing.

[AllaN01Bear]

9. he uses real film. ohm myyyy! lovely snaps.

[Biophilic]

10. Oh, wow, thanks for sharing Bo. I loved your story and the photo is simply wonderful.

Sometimes I forget the beauty I am surrounded by and then something like your photograph drops in my lap and I'm stunned and thrilled at the same time. Thanks for sharing.

[chia]

11. The beauty of your photo blows me away. I could get lost in it for hours.

Thank you so much for sharing. You did something remarkable.

[KPN]

20. Ditto.

[Ford_Prefect]

12. Bo, that's a Van Gogh moment! Thank you!

[Hekate]

13. What do I want? I want to go there...

[TheBlackAdder]

14. Wowee!

.



.

[panader0]

15. Exquisite.

I spent some time in Stanley the summer of 2000. Rafted down the Salmon, caught trout.
The area is beautiful.

[Joinfortmill]

16. 👍

[Roy Rolling]

17. Excellent

I need to spend more time outdoors at night if this is how the sky looks. I had no idea, in New Orleans, the sky is just a humid haze viewed from below sea level. These stars and galaxies are wondrous.

[lunatica]

18. You looked at the sky and it looked back

Gorgeous photo! It looks like an eye in the middle.

[KPN]

19. Unreal Simple Man!