I'm very happy and proud of this image. It's a personal complete success. Planning, inspiration and tecnical skills have made an unforgettable memory.
This was taken at 3900 m asl on a windswept plateau. Very cold ! Planning was perfect. I knew exactly with the weather forecast, what day, at which hour, and were I had to stay to have the milky way vertically above the Cotopaxi volcano crater. Problem was to find a foreground more or less interesting on this deserted plateau with no vegetation except a little moss. Scouting during hours I found this dried-up stream or path, covered with dry silvery-grey moss running straight towards the volcano.
All I had to do then was apply my technical knowledge of night landscapes to capture every aspect of this magnificent view..
This is a stack of 20 frames at 5 seconds with a 20mm lens at f1,8 and ISO 3200 blended with Starrylandscape stacker for the sky and one frame for the foreground during nautical twillight at f16, 8 seconds and ISO 400.
The glow behind the volcano comes from the light polution of the city of Latacunga. The big star on the right is the planet Venus.