Aquila from near Wardell, MO

Shot from near Wardell, MO at the end of July while visiting family. The skies in southeast Missouri are nice and dark, but I was set up near a rice field which made challenging to keep the mosquitos off me while shooting. 

There was a first quarter moon up while this was being shot, so the background is a bit washed out, but I’d never be able to even think about shooting wide field from NYC, moon or not.

The obvious “artistic” part on this shot is the use of a 4-point star filter. The not-so-obvious part is the use of a light fog filter. There’s a bit of irony here: the wonderful sharpness of modern lenses and the high pixel count of the Canon T3i means that even the bright stars tend to be focused a bit too well so the bright stars don’t look much different than the only kind-of-bright ones. Using a fog filter results in a star whose size in the image is a better indicator of its brightness. Without the filter, it’s actually hard to pick out the constellation, with it, it’s pretty easy.