Mittened Palm of Alabama Hills

I was on a one night trip to Alabama Hills in California last week. An awesome area with exquisite rock formations. I had seen this rock formation earlier and even back then I had thought of this as a mittened hand. With the Milky way core not visible anymore, winter is the time to photograph the Northern Milky way jewels. While planning for this composition, timing was very important because this arrangement held true only for an hour after the dark. Then it would have moved higher in the sky. After a quick lookout walk around the trail I set up my camera on top of a rock and captured this image. It is a panorama of 4 shots taken vertically to encompass the whole landscape and the Northern Milky way from Taurus all the way up to Cassiopeia.

15 shots x 2 panels for sky - Tracked at f/2, 120s, ISO800
2 panel for FG - f/2, 180sec, ISO800
Total shooting time - 1 hour 6 minutes

Nikon Z6ii(Astromodded), Viltrox 24mm f/1.8
iOptron Skyguider Pro sky tracker
Kolari Vision - UV/IR cut + Ha bandpass filter

Sky image integrated in Pixinsight, Pano stitched in Photoshop, Further processing of nebulous regions in Pixinsight and Final processing with the landscape in Photoshop.