Happy October! This is the month of spooky things, tricks and treats, and exceptional fall color.
Speaking of treats, photographer Lucas Yan shared a special one with CaliforniaFallColor.com earlier this week. It is a photo of the Milky Way over a tufa at Mono Lake that he took the night of Sept. 26.
Yan explained that these types of astrophotography photos involve taking multiple photos at the same location one after another. One very long exposure for the foreground, and a series of short exposures for the stars. The photos are then aligned and stacked in post-processing.
But it was his description of why he took this image that really captured our attention.
“Milky Way photography is usually done in the spring and summer in the Northern Hemisphere since parts of it are below the horizon after September once the sun sets,” Yan said. “This weekend was probably the last good window to take a photo of the Milky Way since the moon was out of the way and the clouds cleared up. I feel this was a nice final farewell to summer and signifies a transition into autumn.”
Autumn is definitely here in full force, especially in the Eastern Sierra, so we couldn’t agree more.
Great Milky Way!