Light pollution

Posted on August 16th, 2014

It doesn’t have to be bad, if you can see all the bright enlightened cities. It can also be very nice to look at all the lights, if the lights of the night are illuminating the fog from below.
On this journey I expected it and I wouldn’t be dissappointed. The fog ceiling was enough low and the Mythen was enough high. You have only to carry all the gear up to the mountain and after the shooting you have to carry it more far down, because all the funiculars are no more working. But I could take some nice images and I think it was worth it, or not?

Sightseeing from Mount Mythen

Posted on Juli 4th, 2014

This is an image, which I like especially much. First you have a wonderfull sightseeing from the Mount Mythen to the mountains in Kanton Glarus. And second I like how the mountains are stacked to the horizon.
What I also like is the clearness, which is missing in many nightshots, because of the high ISO noise. There is nearly no noise in this image. You can see this if you watch and enjoy the image in full size.

Starry sky above the alps

Posted on Juni 27th, 2014

This shot I didn’t took with my wide angle lens, but with a standard 50mm f/1.4 from Canon. Normaly a good lens, but it is not so adequate for starscape images. In the corner of the image you can see a strong coma, though I had closed the aperture one f-stop down to f/2. Therefore I stayed with my Canon 16-35mm lens.
But also there is a coma, some of you may anyway not realized it, I think this image is not so bad, because with 50mm are the mountains a nice piece closer.

Looking for the Milky Way – Part 2

Posted on Juni 18th, 2014

Today in In the second part I will write about the hike up to the destination. Yesterday in the first part I showed you the requirements for the best sight and part three will come to the final with the starscape image.

Here we go

Finally, at 16:00 o’clock I went off . First pick up Stefan, and then head toward the Alpstein Mountains in the region of Appenzell. At about 17:30 we were on the Schwägalp our starting point to the Kronberg. Actually, there’s a cablecar up, but it only runs until 18:00. One can also stay at the Kronberg, but only on weekends, without a dog. As my friend Bubu was also with us, we had to walk up and down again.
So at 18:00 we went finally walking off towards Kronberg. The Santis was still enveloped by a huge black cloud. But in the other directions we could see the blue sky between smaller clouds.

So no reason to be concerned.
The march went first on an alpine meadow and then continued slightly uphill to the Chammhaldenhütte. Then it went down moderately but the way is pretty muddy. Shortly before the Schutzenälpli it goes a little upwards.

But now it’s getting hairy

When we arrived at Langälpli there came the first problem, as a bull was standing in the middle of the pasture and we were with Bubu on a leash! If this is gonna work out …Thankfully it went well. But then the way got harder and harder. Now it goes uphill steeply and I had my heavy backpack full of equipment. Why do I always have to carry so much stuff with me? Eventually, after what felt like 10 hours, we arrived at the top, but I had to be extremely careful not to stand on my own tongue.

Finally on the top

Now we had earned us a big dinner. Although we could not stay over the night, we were allowed to use the guest house.
After an opulent meal, I could make a few beautiful shots of the sunset before the dessert. However, there hung still a thick cloud over the Säntis, it did not look good for the Milky Way. After a little dessert and we had to wait until 23:00 when it was quite dark.

Then I went outside for a short weather check to look at how bad it was with the cloud situation. And what was that? I could see the beacon on the Santis and and yes, YES are the stars around it! Just as told by the weather service earlier, the sky over the Santis was perfectly clear!

Read tomorrow in third and final part, whether we found the Milky Way or not.

Looking for the Milky Way -Part 1
Looking for the Milky Way -Part 2
Looking for the Milky Way -Part 3

The Bernese Alps

Posted on Februar 19th, 2014

Near the place where my wife was grown is a nice vista point. If the sky is clear and the moon is not in sight you can see a wonderful panorama. And if you go at night you can see this alp view panorama before an awesome starry sky.
The strong light pollution behind the mountains, you can see, is from Italy over 100km away. That’s the reason you can’t see the milky way in europe so bad. Even the alps are to small to get a pollution free sky. And check the exposure date, you know if the sky is good I’m always shooting ready

Arosa at night

Posted on Februar 6th, 2014

If you’re going to a holiday destination were you can hike, then you will go for sleep at night to be fit for the next day. How boring! Go for a hike at night, watch the stars and the moon. And take awesome photos which other tourists won’t ever have, because they are sleeping. I took this image while the fullmoon was shining and brightened up the landscape. I made 8 shots for a stacked image.