Landscape Astrophotography

Beyond the North end of the Milky Way - Andromeda, Pleiades, Capella. A photograph from the Maine Bold Coast in the Bog Brook Preserve/Moose Cove area. The Milky Way extends through the middle of this image, accompanied by M31-better known as the Andromeda galaxy (the fuzzy light to center right) and the open star cluster M45-better known as Pleiades, below it and closer to the horizon. Polaris, the North Star is just out-of-frame on the left at about the same height as Andromeda. This is one frame from a short time lapse I set up in the Bog Brook Preserve area on Maine's Bold Coast. There was quite a bit of airglow present during this shoot. The light pollution on the horizon is coming from Grand Manan Island and other points further Northeast in Maine and Canada. I did some quick light-painting of the foreground rocks with my flashlight. This image has been processed through Lightroom 4 & Photoshop CS5. The Bold Coast of Maine is a beautiful and rugged area of spruce-fir forest, peat bogs, dynamic rocky cliffs, and cobblestone beaches. Thanks to the Maine Coast Heritage Trust, the Cutler Coast Public Reserved Land & the Bog Brook Preserve are part of the largest contiguous area of conservation land on the Maine coast outside of Acadia National Park.