This week we’re continuing an exploration of the Foothills Parkway, but with a slightly deeper view than the previous two images.  I’ve wanted to shoot this section of the road for a while – I just really like the long straight lines and the look of this section.  To get the look that I wanted required zooming in a bit though, so I set this image up at 40mm, but not knowing what exactly would line up in the sky.  As luck would have it, the Seagull Nebula came into view from that vantage point, as did part of the Gum Nebula (named for astronomer Colin Stanley Gum, though in this case it looks kind of like a piece of chewed gum).

To capture this shot required standing in the middle of the road for quite a while.  Typically that wouldn’t be a big deal, but with all the road closures lately, the Foothills Parkway has seen way more traffic than normal!  I finally got enough time at 3AM to pull it all off!

To go along with the image above, I also wanted to share a deeper view, which can be seen below in the Alternative Perspective section.  I put this image together using data from a remote observatory in Chile, thanks to Telescope Live.  These are always fun projects, and man, what a view!

More next week.

–Dan Thompson