APOD: The Milky Way from a Malibu Sea Cave (2015 Jul 07)

[APOD Robot]

The Milky Way from a Malibu Sea Cave

Explanation: What’s happening outside this cave? Nothing unexpected – it’s just the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy passing by. As the Earth turns, the band of our Galaxy appears to rotate and shift along the horizon. The featured image was taken by a photographer who professes a passion for locating sea caves, and who found this spectacular grotto in Leo Carrillo State Park near Malibu, California, USA. After some planning, he timed this single shot image through the 10-meter high cave entrance to show the Milky Way far in the distance. In the foreground, several rocks about one meter across are visible. Visible in the background starscape are millions of stars including the relatively bright and orange Antares, situated just to the right of the image center.

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[Guest]

Is this the same cave used in "The Usual Suspects"?

[Case]

Is this the same cave used in "The Usual Suspects"?

Leo Carrillo State Beach, Malibu, California - the location is roughly the same, so it could be. Here is a Panoramio daytime photo of what I think is the same cave as Jack’s.

[Lg007]

The question I have to ask is how did he get this clear shot with all the LIGHT POLLUTION from all of SoCal and a constant night time MARINE LAYER? Call me a hater or doubter but I'm skeptical about its originally without some help from a NorCal software company that has a name assorted with the word for house in Old Spanish California.

[geckzilla]

The question I have to ask is how did he get this clear shot with all the LIGHT POLLUTION from all of SoCal and a constant night time MARINE LAYER? Call me a hater or doubter but I'm skeptical about its originally without some help from a NorCal software company that has a name assorted with the word for house in Old Spanish California.

Adobe always helps, but if the photographer says it was a single shot then it probably was. Night time photography can often be confusing and unnatural looking. An exceptionally clear night would result in this image. It's not like they never happen. And the cave walls block the light from any moon or city.

[paullangford]

I can't help thinking that this is a composite of two photos.
The cave and sea look like a long exposure of 10 seconds or more, hence the milky water appearance around the rocks in the sea.
If this was the case, then you would have 10 seconds of star trails in the sky as well.......which you don't.
I think the Milky Way image is a series of short exposure stacked images which is then composited into the cave opening......because they are sharp and no star trails exist.
Another give away for me is the very slight white halo around the edge of the cave rocks, which you'd get for using them as a mask for your composite.

So it looks like we have a long exposure shot for the cave and the sea, and also a series of stacked short exposure shots for the Milky Way........looks like a composite of two shots to me......

[geckzilla]

I can't help thinking that this is a composite of two photos.

Sure, stacked composites can look like this, but so can a single photo that has had one area adjusted separately from another area. Another thing that can cause halos is a sharpening filter. I can help you pinpoint the dissonance you feel when you look at the image. It's not just the slight edge where the cave touches the sky. Look at where the horizon meets the sky. Is it ever possible that the ocean, lacking a reflection from something like the moon, can appear brighter than the sky, even at night? Not unless the ocean itself is glowing, and I don't see any of that bioluminescent plankton here! Anyway, the horizon is often a place where things get wonky when attempting to adjust the sky or land separately from one another, because that is where they meet. A lot of care has to be taken to keep them united and cutting a straight, hard line across like this is what makes it seem disturbingly unreal. It's a kind of uncanny valley for landscape photography.

[paullangford]

I can't help thinking that this is a composite of two photos.

Sure, stacked composites can look like this, but so can a single photo that has had one area adjusted separately from another area. Another thing that can cause halos is a sharpening filter. I can help you pinpoint the dissonance you feel when you look at the image. It's not just the slight edge where the cave touches the sky. Look at where the horizon meets the sky. Is it ever possible that the ocean, lacking a reflection from something like the moon, can appear brighter than the sky, even at night? Not unless the ocean itself is glowing, and I don't see any of that bioluminescent plankton here! Anyway, the horizon is often a place where things get wonky when attempting to adjust the sky or land separately from one another, because that is where they meet. A lot of care has to be taken to keep them united and cutting a straight, hard line across like this is what makes it seem disturbingly unreal. It's a kind of uncanny valley for landscape photography.

Thanks for the reply.....I agree sharpening can give you a halo (which it wouldn't need if it was shot on a tripod)....but so can masking, so you haven't convinced me.
I still think it's a composite of two photos, ....looks nice though.

[auribej]

In that photograph Saturn is visible as well, the brightest light a little to the right and up from Antares...am I right?

[Joe Stieber]

In that photograph Saturn is visible as well, the brightest light a little to the right and up from Antares...am I right?

Yes, you are right. Saturn is near the head of Scorpius and not far from the upper-right edge of the cave entrance. Based on Saturn's position relative to the stars, the picture was taken in mid-May 2015.

[Chris Peterson]

The question I have to ask is how did he get this clear shot with all the LIGHT POLLUTION from all of SoCal and a constant night time MARINE LAYER?

Light pollution is remarkably local. You only need to be a mile or two from bright sources and you can have dark skies even in the middle of an urban zone. And there certainly is no "constant" marine layer along the southern California coast. Many times I've observed the Milky Way, and stars to the horizon looking out over the ocean in this area.

Also, with digital images it is possible to set your black level to reduce an offset caused by light pollution. In fact, this actually results in something closer to what the eye actually sees. In this image, there is a gradient in the sky that is caused by light pollution, so we know the site wasn't extremely dark.

[neufer]

[b][color=#0000FF][size=150]Leo Carrillo with Conquistador[/size][/color][/b]

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<<Leopoldo Antonio Carrillo [Cay-reel-yo] (August 6, 1881 – September 10, 1961), was an American actor, vaudevillian, political cartoonist, and conservationist. He is best remembered from the television series The Cisco Kid (1950–1956), on which, beginning at the age of seventy, he portrayed the sidekick Pancho to Cisco [Duncan Renaldo (1904–1980)].

A preservationist and conservationist, Carrillo served on the California Beach and Parks commission for eighteen years and played a key role in the state's acquisition of Hearst Castle at San Simeon, Los Angeles Arboretum, and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. He was eventually made a goodwill ambassador by the California Governor at the time.

As a result of his service to California, west of Malibu on CA-1 Pacific Coast Highway, a 1.5 mile beach is named Leo Carrillo State Park in his honor. In 1913, Carrillo married Edith Shakespeare Haeselbarth, of Nyack, New York, whom he met backstage at the New York City theater where she had seen him perform. When Carrillo's beloved palomino Conquistador died, the steed was buried in a place of honor on a secluded knoll to the east of Carrillo's ranch in what is now La Costa.>>

[montylc2001]

"Is that the same cave from "The Usual Suspects"?

first thing I thought of also. Beat me to it.

[Jim Armstrong]

A nice picture.
I wonder if it is accurate to say "visible in the background starscape are millions of stars."
Though we all know miIlions (or billions) are there, I could count perhaps a few hundred.

[Chris Peterson]

A nice picture.
I wonder if it is accurate to say "visible in the background starscape are millions of stars."
Though we all know miIlions (or billions) are there, I could count perhaps a few hundred.

In this image there are thousands of resolved stars. The sky here only consists of a couple hundred thousand pixels (on the higher resolution image the main page image links to), so that would be the maximum we might resolve. Of course, the image has captured photons from billions of individual stars. So I guess it all comes down to how we want to interpret "visible".

[Jim Armstrong]

And millions of grains of sand are visible on the beach.

[Chris Peterson]

And millions of grains of sand are visible on the beach.

And we won't even get into molecules of water...

[ta152h0]

How many stars can one identify ? bet Magellan could name quite a few

[Chris Peterson]

How many stars can one identify ? bet Magellan could name quite a few

There are between 5,000 and 10,000 stars visible to the naked eye. So under ideal conditions, in a site with clear horizons, a person might be able to see about half that. All would have catalog names, a couple hundred perhaps would have proper names.

[montylc2001]

Found a still from the movie "The Usual Suspects" and yes it is the same cave. Taken at a different angle and time of day, and tide is out, but rock formations and formation in front of cave entrance correlate. Plus probably a little erosion the last 20 years.

[neufer]

Found a still from the movie "The Usual Suspects" and yes it is the same cave. Taken at a different angle and time of day, and tide is out, but rock formations and formation in front of cave entrance correlate. Plus probably a little erosion the last 20 years.

• That is clearly a different Carrillo cave!!!

The APOD cave is from: Beach Girls and the Monster (1965)

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

<<The Beach Girls and the Monster (aka Monster from the Surf) is a horror and beach party film, released in 1965.

Young Richard Lindsay (Arnold Lessing) has given up his career in science in favor of his newfound passion, surfing on the Santa Monica beachfront near his father and stepmother's house, where he lives. This is to the great displeasure of his father, the noted oceanographer Dr. Otto Lindsay (Jon Hall), who is married to the younger Vicky (Sue Casey), who is dissatisfied with Otto's relative lack of devotion to her. Also living with the Lindsays is Richard's sculptor buddy Mark (Walker Edmiston), who walks with a limp as a result of an auto accident Richard had earlier.

While Vicky hits on her stepson and teases his friend Mark, a monster emerges from ocean and starts slaughtering the kids on the beach. Dr. Lindsay seems convinced that it is a mutant Barracuda. The monster is believed to be the a genetically mutated Barracuda (carnivorous South American "fantigua fish") that has grown large enough in anthropomorphic manner to exist out of the oceans in loathsome seaweed shrouded form.>>

[montylc2001]

take closer look. Angle and lighting is different but correlate. What is convincing is the rock formation in the middle front of the cave entrance, plus the floor seems to be covered deeper in sand.

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

I'm convinced Marge Simpson is eating the Milky Way.

Marge.jpg (9.24 KiB) Viewed 6263 times

But isn't the airglow and the mist soothing?

[ta152h0]

this would be a perfect APOD for a pop up quiz in an astronomy class. Here is a picture on the screen and start identifying the stars by name. And you got 45 minutes/

[jackfusco]

The question I have to ask is how did he get this clear shot with all the LIGHT POLLUTION from all of SoCal and a constant night time MARINE LAYER? Call me a hater or doubter but I'm skeptical about its originally without some help from a NorCal software company that has a name assorted with the word for house in Old Spanish California.

Hello! I was actually really surprised myself, but if you check out the location of the beach on a map, it actually juts outs quite a bit. This gives a pretty good view South without any land in the way. The cave conveniently cuts out a lot of the light pollution you would see just to the left.

For reference you can check out this shot that was taken near by and a bit earlier in the night - http://www.jackfusco.com/Portfolio/Nigh ... -hnfN7zN/A
Still a good view of the stars, but definitely a lot more washed out on the left side.

Hope that helps!