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Nathan Eaton Jr.
Dallas, Texas, USA
06/26/2022
05:35 am

Equipment Details:

Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-105mm f/4 lens

Post-processing Details:

This is the result of merging 6 images (taken in portrait orientation at ISO 200, f/4, 2 seconds) into a panorama with Adobe Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw.
The resulting image was cropped and adjusted for exposure, sharpness, contrast, etc.
That image was then edited in Photoshop to add insets and labels. This also involved reducing the size of the image by 40% after making copies at full resolution for the insets.
Some of the insets (e.g., Pleiades) were additionally edited to bring out more detail.
The overall image had a small amount of noise added to reduce color banding in the blue sky.

Image Details:

This was my second attempt to capture an interesting image with the Moon and all five naked-eye planets lined up in the order of their orbits out from the Sun with the Downtown Dallas skyline in the foreground. As the conditions on June 24th were not ideal and elusive Mercury was mostly lost in the haze over Downtown Dallas, I tried again on Sunday, June 26th. The sky was much clearer (at least over the Dallas skyline) and there was less haze. Thankfully, staying up almost all night a second time was definitely worth it!

In this image, I've added an enlarged insert of each object and labeled them to give everyone a more clear idea of what they are looking at without having to click on the image to see it full screen and then zoom in to tell what each object is. See the post-processing notes for more information.

While the surprise on Friday's outing was the ISS flyby (which I captured for a timelapse of the planets rising over Dallas), the surprise for Sunday was that I also captured the Pleiades star cluster, which many may know as the Seven Sisters (immortalized in the Subaru logo)!

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