Peak star party: a field full of amateur astronomers, deep sky observers, astrophotographers and simply lovers of the night sky. Several hundred people.
This was Monday night, October 18th, our first all night clear sky for the 2017 Okie-Tex star party. Just before darkness I got into position. During the day I chose a spot to get the entire star party field. About the start of astronomical darkness I started a series of photos to build the panorama above. Click the image for a bigger version.
Technically it was our third night of the star party. Really it was the first good night as Saturday was cut short with clouds and most people are tired from traveling that day. Sunday night we got smacked with rain, hail and wind after watching a tremendous display of cloud to cloud lightning to our NNW. So as darkness fell Monday night you could feel the excitement for a good clear night on the field.
Surprisingly (to me) this is my first nightscape panorama. Its made from two rows of six exposures each 30 seconds long, landscape orientation with a 14mm lens. I didn’t get the coverage exactly right, lost track of my count on the second row. So the top very right corner I had to fill in. I should have taken a few more shots to ensure proper overlap, need to execute a bit better. This image isn’t perfect, likely I’ll tweak it a bit but overall I’m pretty happy with it.