Heavenly Milk

Last night's forecast was for clearing skies, no moon, and the milky way to arch late over the southeastern sky. Thus, I headed to Sedona as I thought Cathedral Rock would make a nice silhouette. The orange glow is from the lights of Phoenix 100 miles away.
Nikon D90, Tokina 28-75 @ 28mm, f/2.8, ISO 1600, 20sec

That Friday late afternoon, turbulent clouds made for interesting patterns.

The sky above Cathedral Rock was cool. A tornado must have spawned, as several houses were cy-cloned out of the image. Sedona/Oak Creek would have made a nice national park or monument rather than a sprawling village of million dollar homes.
Blend of 2 images for land and sky exposures.

Horizontal version taken from near that time frame.

The sun did peek through at the last minute to cast a nice red glow on Cathedral (but unfortunately did not reach the clouds and virga above)
As always, thanks for looking and offering any suggestions. It was nice to get out photographing after being laid up a few weeks.

Very nice set, Doug. I especially like #3. Those clouds must have been even more impressive in person.

For the Milky Way starscape, I assume you meant f2.8 not f28 ?

Thanks Bill. (The missing decimal point has been found too.)

Nice Doug - like the milky way shot.

Wild cloud patterns and some beautiful light on Cathedral Rock at sunset. I like the composition of the Milky Way shot, with the Milky Way arcing over Cathedral Rock. One relatively small issue: the sky has merged with the land on the left side of Cathedral Rock. By my calculations, 20 seconds is as long as you can go with a 28mm lens without getting visible star trails, so you couldn't get more exposure that way. Could you have used a still higher ISO on your camera without unacceptable noise? I know the red glow is from Phoenix, but even the Milky Way itself has a reddish tint. Perhaps shift the color of the upper part of the sky a bit toward midnight blue? Right now my first impression was that the sky overall was red, which struck me as a bit odd. It's tough processing those night scenes to look "real," particularly as we don't see color at night!

Gotta love that light pollution eh? Glad you were able to catch the milky way here. I might try to head out sometime this week and try for myself before the moon gets too bright again. The clouds in the following images make for some dramatic images. A nice series here as always.

Doug, you have got some great conditions here. Absolutely love those storm clouds. The last one is wonderful too. The second one is a great abstract. The third one is wonderfully composed...

Thank you for the comments and feedback.
Glenn, I did take one at ISO 2000 and 20 sec, but have found that ISO to be noticeably noisier on the D90 in past star shots. Here is the ISO 2000 image with the WB cooled a little. Not much difference seen in the left side of this web version, but it's more noticeable on the full size image. I may need to apply brush in a layer locally there. The original WB was set for "cool white fluorescent", 3950K. No noise reduction has been applied. Overall, this has been the best star shot I have taken.

Love it, and the orange glow adds to the photo even if it is from Phoenix lights!

The last time I went to Red Rock Crossing, I thought I remembered that the park closes at or near sunset. Did they change access rules or am I misremembering? Or are there access points other than Red Rock Crossing?

Thanks Don. Crescent Moon Park does close inconveniently and there is no parking outside of the park entrance. But one can also access the creek at Red Rock Crossing from the Verde Valley School road south of the creek. In this case, I was on a ridge on forest service land north of the Crescent Moon park.

Welcome back, Doug!
I like #3 the best because of that beautiful cloud pattern above the monoliths. The blend is pitch perfect, too. A really striking image that's well deserving of a place in your portfolio. However, I notice that the colors of the sandstone are a bit nicer and more vivid in #2.
Glenn's comments about the merging of the land and skies on #1 reflect my own. According to the Dark Skies Finder, the light pollution may be from a bit closer than Phoenix. That's too bad, as this looks like a great place for 'starscapes'.
Was that virga present when you shot the last one? The combination of those two might have been pretty spectacular!

Interesting set of images. The clouds in #3 are great. I might have saturated the formation slightly just my 2 cents. I also like the night shot although I can't comment on it technically since I've never tried it.

Don and John, thanks for the feedback. I will need to go back and tweek Cathedral itself in #3.
The sun peeked out at the end and lit the rock as in #5, but never the sky By sunset, the turbulent clouds had lessened substantially too.

Great shots, Doug! The Milky Way image is nice, but it pales in comparison to the others here, IMO. I really love the vertical of the clouds over the formations, amazing clouds and an absolutely solid comp.

Nice set--#3 is definitely the standout!