Milky crater

For the first time in several months I am almost caught up with image processing and cataloging. That also means I am once again working on the pictures from my Hawaii trip last year, which I still did not get done all the way. Here is one of my favorite shots, reprocessed to reduce noise.

It was taken atop Mount Kilauea, which is an active volcano. You can see steam rising from the caldera below, which is illuminated by the glow from the hot lava deeper in the caldera (not visible). I was hoping for a good shot with the milky way, since the location is far away from light pollution and at high elevation. Unfortunately it was a bit cloudier than I'd hoped, but after a lot of waiting for the clouds to clear I saw this interesting shape and decided it could work as well. This is not a composite composition, although I combined multiple frames to reduce noise. This image is actually part of a timelapse which I hope to finish soon as well.