Fitz Roy under Moonlight

Why did these peaks shine in red? Well, this was a question I asked

myself when I firstly captured such amazing phenomenon in late April

2016 in Patagonia Los Glaciares National Park.

Eventually, I discovered that in a clear night, when the moon started

to rise above horizon, moonlight could lighten up Fitz Roy peaks and

made them shine in red. But such red shining effect varied

significantly in terms of the duration, intensity and appearance time

depending on the size of moon phase.

From late April to mid May 2016, I spent a great deal of time to

observe this amazing phenomenon from different locations in Los

Glaciares National Park. By the end, I got good knowledge about the

phenomenon of rising moonlight shining effect on Fitz Roy peaks.

Another interesting discovery was: it seemed that such phenomenon did

not exist for other mountain peaks such as Cerro Torre peaks.

This image was one of the four images I captured successfully such

phenomenon. What made this image special was that the Milky Way was

also moving down enough towards the mountain peaks at 7:00am local

time so that the red peaks of Fitz Roy and Milky Way were captured

together with one frame from a 14mm wide angle focal length. The

foreground of this image was captured successively with another frame.

The entire process of capturing this image took 15 hours from the

beginning of arriving at this high location to the time of getting

down the hill after sunrise.

According to our calculation, the chance of capturing the Milky Way

and moonlight red peaks of Fitz Roy together is very slim, probably

less than 5 times throughout a calendar year in Los Glaciares National

Peak.

Thanks for viewing this image.

15 hours to take this picture? Well, I think the effort was worth it, because the result is very special. I love the orange color of the mountains, the Milky Way in diagonal position, the composition and everything here. Simply wonderful

Kind Regards,

Rosario.

thanks for the back story on this picture. Well worth it.  Very good picture.  Congrats

Bernardo

Magnifica! Un vero capolavoro! Ciao Giannni