There are only a few days out of the year to capture the images for a double Milky Way arch, with both the bright core of summer and the fainter, but nebula rich band from winter. I had my chance the Spring of 2025. Crystal clear, moonless, Bortle 1 dark skies. A wide open valley covered in photogenic salt polygons in Death Valley National Park. The only challenge was the 25 mph gale force winds gusting to 50. Not one to be deterred, and realizing this was my only chance this year before the moon made its reappearance, I hiked out into the night. At least there was no dust from the heavily encrusted slat flats. I hunkered down with my tripod about 8 inches above the ground to prevent it from blowing over. It was so windy I had to put my glasses in my camera bag after focusing because they kept blowing off my face. I was forced to shoot at 15 seconds because I wanted to minimize any potential motion blur from the wind jostling the camera. After finishing the foreground and the first panorama, I hiked back to the car to nap until the Milky Way core rise. It was still super windy when I awoke. My ground cover instantly blew off into the far reaches of the park before I could weigh it down with gear. But the results made it all worth while.
Canon Ra, Canon 15-35 f2.8 RF lens
Blue hour foreground panorama: ISO 800, 1/15 sec, F 8
Sky panorama: ISO 6400, 15 sec, F2.8 — 4 images stacked