Summit Sunrise #3

Another Mauna Kea summit sunrise image – well, I said that this might turn into a series. This was a set of 4 shots taken in a square pattern from the back of the JCMT looking westward. Put together in hugin and cropped and tweaked in Lightroom. Yep, I’m ‘hugin-happy’ too!

As the sun rises to the east, the shadow of Mauna Kea is cast to the west. Seeing the shadow of the mountain you are standing on always gives me a sense of perspective, about how large this mountain really is.

In the corner you can see three dishes from the SMA array. There are some fascinating features and range of colours in this image, and I quite like the composition. But note the dark streak across the image from top left down towards the apex of Mauna Kea’s shadow. I’m not exactly sure what that is, but I’m speculating that its the shadow itself from the summit which was behind and above me when I took this.