Effing space! Raw 30-second exposure from Canon 5D Mark II

Effingspace

The galactic-center setting over the sierra mountains - as seen from our tiny speck, orbiting another brighter speck, among 200 billion other bright specks, in a wisp of gas and dust slowly swirling around a super massive black hole creating a system (our galaxy), that, in itself is one of 200 billion.

Zooming back to the first speck, this was taken at 9000 feet, from the top of Mammoth Mountain at 2:30 in the morning. I used a super-bright LED flashlight (which has a cold, more moon-like color temperature) to give the foreground just a tad more light than what the moon could provide. Wondering about the nitty gritty photo settings? 16mm wide lens at 2.8 aperture, 1600 ISO with a 30 second shutter.

I might post a post-post shot later. Ha.
For now, it's back to whatever small things we were just doing.