Milky Way over the Susquehanna (wildfire smoke edition)

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Soopahmahn

Soopahmahn

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A carefully planned Milky Way shot involving a long midnight hike to a rocky outcropping over the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania yielded this landscape. The MW is heavily obscured by light pollution magnified by Canadian wildfire smoke, carried on the jet stream in heavy concentration right over our location. The moon was new and well below the horizon, cloud cover was reported nonexistent, and general visibility seemed high.

I didn’t think the impact would be this strong! Baltimore and Philadelphia light pollution is broad and intense, but the edge of each city region is at least 50km from my location. This is a Bortle 4 region, so I am curious what I will see when I come back after the smoke clears.

Just the same, I really enjoy how this came out. Always open to your feedback! Happy Friday!

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Ah, my apologies. The Bortle scale is a scale of sky brightness. If you look up a “dark sky map” it will be color coded, with bright white being Bortle 9 (e.g. major cities) and Bortle 1 being black (open ocean, large uninhabited areas).

Bortle 4 is the transition from suburban to rural. So you can make out the Milky Way easily and enjoy some detail in it. In darker skies, you would see the dramatic marble/vein texture inside and lots of detail.
 
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