Land of the Yankee Fork

Whelp, here it is, the best shot I’ve ever taken, it’s all downhill from here. This is a shot from a hillside overlooking Yankee Fork Valley in central Idaho, lush and green from an incredible amount of water melting from the heavy winter snow. 38 exposures total went into making it, altogether it took nearly 2 hours to capture all the images. I started from the left (north), at first I was a little upset because it appeared there was a tremendous amount of light pollution along the northern horizon, but there’s no towns in the area, nothing that could produce that kind of light pollution.

It wasn’t until I had driven down into the valley later that night to take some more shots that I realized it was something I had always wanted to see and image, a legitimate bucket list item, the Aurora Borealis. That night a spectacular Northern Lights show was on display, I have never been so happy to be out imaging the night sky in my entire life, something I will never forget. The purples-pinks-reds-greens from the Lights combined with an absolutely ridiculous amount of green and red airglow helped produce the most colorful image I’ve ever put together. This is a personal reminder, you never know what new and amazing things you’ll get to experience when you go out shooting at night, always take advantage of any time you can get under clear night skies.

38 exposures stitched together (no stacking), all shot back to back with my Nikon D800E and Sigma Art 50mm lens on a Sky Watcher Star Adventurer. All exposures are 2 minutes at ISO 1600, sky shots at f2.8, foreground at f1.4.
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