Milky Way from Mauna Kea

Here’s one of my bucket list shots seeing the MW rise from the top of Mauna Kea at almost 14,000 ft making it the highest point in Hawaii. Big shout out to my cousin for showing me around and bringing me up here two nights in a row when they closed the road to the summit on the first due to poor weather conditions. We got lucky with some nice clouds at sunset that blew away as the Milky Way rose. We spent time acclimating at the VS but the rapid gain in elevation still took a toll on me. It was unreal to see the glow from the fissure and Hilo underneath the clouds which lined up perfectly with the core. The small flame under the clouds is the fissure pumping out gallons of lava and spouting hundreds of feet in the air. You can see the glow in the air and get glimpses of the fissure driving around the island…definitely surreal to see. On the bottom right of the picture you can see an Array which is being lit by the setting moon behind us. One of the darker skies I’ve had the chance to witness. This is the 24mm version. I’ll post a 14mm version down the road. This is a single shot stacked for noise reduction. Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24, f/2.8, 8 sec, ISO-10,000

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