Welostinplaces

Welostinplaces Deepak & Manisha (Husband+Wife)
In awe of nature and its beings. Capturing landscape, wildlife, nature & more.

During my stay at Port Aransas, this flamingo was the star of the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center. I spent a lot of t...
03/29/2026

During my stay at Port Aransas, this flamingo was the star of the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center. I spent a lot of time with it and got plenty of shots, but this one stands out.

I wanted the sun to set right behind the bird, so I moved around until I found the angle. From the boardwalk, it just wouldn’t line up. I was too high (on the boardwalk), shooting down, and the scene didn’t work.

So I took a risk. I secured the strap around my neck and leaned over the fence, lowering the camera down. I couldn’t see the viewfinder. One hand held the camera, the other pressed the shutter. I set focus beforehand and kept shooting, hoping one frame would be sharp.

I was honestly worried I might drop the camera, but I went for it anyway. When I checked the shots later and saw this one, I knew it was worth it.

Sony a7rIV + Sony 200-600G
at f/10, 1/80Sec, ISO 100 at 376mm
Date: 02/13/2026

I have imaged the Apennine, Alpine, and Caucasus regions several times, and they always stand out when the sun is low. T...
03/28/2026

I have imaged the Apennine, Alpine, and Caucasus regions several times, and they always stand out when the sun is low. The shadows across the mountains and surrounding craters bring out strong contrast and fine detail.

This time, I wanted a wider composition that includes all three ranges together, which my setup can’t capture in a single frame. So I built a 2×2 mosaic, with each panel recorded at 20,000 frames and only the best subset kept for stacking, then stitched into a single panorama.

Lately, I’ve been noticing how many lunar features resemble faces or expressions. Probably just pattern recognition, but now I actively look for them. See if you can spot any here.

Full-resolution images: https://app.astrobin.com/u/deepakpati?collection=95606

Date: 03/26/2025 - Little Rock, AR
Mount: Celestron AVX
Scope: Meade 8" SCT
Camera: ZWO ASI462MC
Filter: 685nm IR Pass
Capture: FireCapture
Processing: PIPP, AutoStakkert!4, RegiStax, Photoshop

This was something I kept putting off for a while.Milky Way panoramas always felt complicated just from watching videos,...
03/24/2026

This was something I kept putting off for a while.

Milky Way panoramas always felt complicated just from watching videos, even before really trying them myself. I’ve taken a few before, but this is my first tracked panorama. Every panel of the sky was shot on a star tracker to get longer exposures and a better signal. It’s a 2×7 mosaic, planned around a short, clear window during my trip to Port Aransas, TX.

This isn’t a random composite; the sky is real, captured under dark skies in Padre Island, south of Port Aransas, TX. The foreground is from a different Nature Preserve at Charlie's Pasture, but aligned to match how the Milky Way would actually appear there. Light pollution just made it impossible to capture both together.

Glad I finally did this properly. Definitely doing more.
Full Resolution: https://app.astrobin.com/u/deepakpati?i=s4qrl9

Exif:
Camera: Sony a7III + Tamron 17-28mm f2.8
Date: 02/17/2026

Sky: ISO 1600, f/3.2, 60 Sec, 17mm. 2X7 Panel
Foreground: ISo 100, f/10, 1 Sec, 98mm (1X7 Panel) with Sony 70-200 f2.8 G II

I still remember driving for hours and waiting even longer just for a chance to see this bird here in Arkansas. Back the...
03/22/2026

I still remember driving for hours and waiting even longer just for a chance to see this bird here in Arkansas. Back then, even hearing about one showing up at a refuge felt like a big deal. The first time I photographed one here was completely unexpected, while I was waiting for a different bird.

Fast forward to Port Aransas, TX, and suddenly, they are everywhere. After all that effort in the past, it almost felt unreal to see so many, and this time, finally, at close range.

The light was harsh, not what I would’ve hoped for, but when the sun hits those blues, purples, and whites just right, it’s hard not to appreciate how beautiful these birds are.

If you’re not familiar with them, this is the Tricolored Heron. A small, elegant heron, roughly the size of an egret, but easily one of the most striking.

Sony a7rIV + Sony 200-600 at 600mm.
Date: 02/13/2026
Nature Preserve at Charlie’s Pasture.

Yesterday at Bald K**b Wildlife Refuge with my camera club, we were out hoping to photograph owls. While waiting for the...
03/15/2026

Yesterday at Bald K**b Wildlife Refuge with my camera club, we were out hoping to photograph owls. While waiting for them to show up, the morning sun started breaking through this scene and it immediately reminded me of a style I had once seen online.

I shot a focus stack to keep the whole scene sharp and later shaped it into this painterly look in post. I also made a normal edit of the same scene, but this version felt far more interesting to me.

Sony a7riv + Sony 200-600 G
ISO 160, 200mm, f10.0, 1/13 Sec (0.0 ev)

"Step into the Galaxy."Tracked - Stacked - Composite.Settings: Sky: ISO 1600, f/3.2, 60 Sec at 17mm (10 images stacked)F...
03/11/2026

"Step into the Galaxy."

Tracked - Stacked - Composite.

Settings:
Sky: ISO 1600, f/3.2, 60 Sec at 17mm (10 images stacked)
Foreground: ISO 100, f10, 4 Sec at 28mm(Shot during blue hour)
Camera: Sony a7III + Tamron Americas 17-28 f2.8

Story:
During my stay in Port Aransas, TX, I had only one clear night to attempt a Milky Way shoot. I arrived at my location on Padre Island, which I scouted the day before, around 4:30 AM, and waited for the Milky Way core to rise into a good position. After shooting a panorama, I still had a little time before dawn and captured a few additional frames. A passing car ruined several exposures, but I managed to keep ten clean images that I later stacked for the sky.

The following morning, I drove to the Chapel on the Dunes in Port Aransas to photograph the foreground. I positioned the camera carefully so the chapel would align with where the Milky Way would actually appear in the sky, making this a true-to-location composite.

It took nearly a month to finally process the image. This was my first Milky Way core shot, and seeing it all come together made every bit of the effort worth it.

Painterly Flight.Sony a7III + Sony 70-200GM IIISO320, f/14, 1/60 Sec at 200mm
03/10/2026

Painterly Flight.

Sony a7III + Sony 70-200GM II
ISO320, f/14, 1/60 Sec at 200mm

The American Bittern is one of the hardest birds to see or photograph in the wild. Their camouflage is incredible, and w...
03/07/2026

The American Bittern is one of the hardest birds to see or photograph in the wild. Their camouflage is incredible, and when they sense danger, they often freeze and stretch their neck upward, blending in like a reed.

I’ve been lucky to photograph one twice here in Arkansas, once purely by chance, and another time after waiting a long time. Both moments felt special, but this sighting at the Leonabelle Turnbull Wildlife Center was a real surprise.

The bittern quickly became the star of the place. Birders gathered to watch it, yet it seemed completely unbothered by the crowd. At one point, it casually walked past a few people standing just a few feet away, something you rarely see from such a secretive bird.

As I sort through the many photos I took during that week, this felt like the right one to share first. Seeing it right as I entered the birding center gave me hope that I might spot every bird on my list there.

I know I’m a bit late posting this, but I finally had some time to put together a composite from the recent lunar eclips...
03/07/2026

I know I’m a bit late posting this, but I finally had some time to put together a composite from the recent lunar eclipse (March 3, 2026). I had planned to capture a full progression from the early partial phase all the way to totality, but equipment issues at the start, along with clouds and fog rolling in, limited the number of phases I could shoot.

Each phase in the sequence is an HDR blend of two exposures. One for the eclipsed portion and another for the illuminated part of the Moon. The large Moon at the bottom is a stack of multiple frames captured during totality.

Untracked totality.Date: 03/03/2026Story:As I couldn’t shoot last year’s lunar eclipse because of clouds, I was especial...
03/04/2026

Untracked totality.
Date: 03/03/2026

Story:
As I couldn’t shoot last year’s lunar eclipse because of clouds, I was especially excited for this one on 03/03/2026, knowing it’s the last total eclipse we’ll see here until 2029. When forecasts showed heavy cloud cover across most of the state, that excitement faded a bit, but conditions improved just enough closer to the date to keep my hopes up.
I had planned to run multiple setups, but a tracker failure forced me to stick with one camera on a tripod. So I made the most of what I had. Moving clouds, fog rising off the lake, and even a prescribed burn nearby added to the challenge. Conditions were decent until totality, when the seeing worsened, and I had to raise the ISO more than I wanted, leaving the images a bit softer than I’d hoped.
Even so, I didn’t want just another standard eclipse shot. With so many similar images bound to flood the internet, I tried something a little different. Here’s the first image I processed before working through the rest.

This morning was my first time at Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center in Port Aransas. I reached before sunrise and start...
02/13/2026

This morning was my first time at Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center in Port Aransas. I reached before sunrise and started setting up. I saw something in the water, but it was too dark to tell what it was.

As blue hour began and the light improved, I realized it was a flamingo. I could not believe it. Flamingos are not common here, and this one had reportedly left weeks ago. It was not even on my list of birds to photograph.

It was standing fairly close to the boardwalk, but there still was not enough light for a detailed portrait. I managed a few shots just before sunrise, during the early blue and golden hour light. It was easily the highlight of the morning, along with a few lifer birds I photographed.

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