Warm night over Ice Lake

  Captured as a grab shot after my original project for the night (a rising moon between two pinnacles reflected in the lake) scene didn't gel. I was standing around in a T-shirt, unusual dress for this usually cold, windswept alpine lake (reason for  the title) that is one of my favorite local overnight objectives and was ready to pack it in for the night. However, I noticed the Milky Way moving towards the butte depicted here. Abandoning the night's original idea, I quickly choose a suitable foreground on the braided inflow stream to this lake, Upper Ice Lake in the Entiat Mountains. I set up my equipment and waited for the Milky Way to come into position over this butte (Pt.8033) and made a large series of exposures. Since it was absolutely pitch dark when I made these exposures, the dark landforms are extremely noisy and low on detail. In processing I was thus faced with the dilemma of removing all the noise, resulting in amorphous landmasses, or leaving in the noise to preserve what detail was there. It's difficult to see in this tiny size but I avoided the problem somewhat by reducing most of the solid shapes to silhouettes, leaving the single foreground stream rock somewhat noisy to preserve some detail. I doubt that this file would make a suitable print any larger than about 11x14.

   I don't actually own a lens large enough to capture this scene. This is a three-image horizontal stitch.

A great piece of art made by nature and you:eye catcher! BR JV