Aescher Milky Way - a photo on Flickriver

Aescher Milky Way

            Since its appearance on the cover page of National Geographic's “DESTINATIONS OF A LIFETIME”, the Aescher Moutain Guesthouse has become very popular with tourists from all over the world. Luckily, the Aescher seems to be mostly unaffected by this. While it certainly has become harder to find a room, the food has stayed authentic and the innkeepers still immediately make you feel at home. 

Visitors have been brought here since the mid of the 19th century and the Aescher Guesthouse is one of the oldest in the Alpstein Mountains. However, for a long time, you almost exclusively found locals and hikers here. As my family has its roots in the area, I know the place since my childhood, when I passed it numberless times with my parents while hiking. Like any place you see very often, even beautiful Aescher eventually lost its special touch for me and for years I passed it with hardly a glance.

With the latest media hype and all the images of the Aescher appearing on social media platforms, I kind of rediscovered the place and, as an astro photographer, I started wondering, if there were any Milky Way Nightscapes taken at the Aescher. To my surprise, I found none.

Of course, Aescher is not the prime site that springs to your mind, when you think about where to capture the Milky Way. At the latitude of Switzerland, where the core of Milky Way stays rather low on the horizon, you normally aim for an open horizon – not what you find at the Aescher! With the sheer cliff, blocking half of the sky and the high mountain range to the south and west, I almost dismissed the place for a night shooting.

However, with some further planning, I found a window of opportunity, when Milky Way would line up nicely with the cliff in the first hours after astronomical dusk, while the core was still above the mountaintops. It was immediately clear to me, that I had to go there! 

As there was no room available on short notice anymore at the Aescher, I stayed at the pleasant Ebenalp Guesthouse, located on top of the cliff, from where you can reach Aescher with a 15-minute hike on a well-maintained mountain trail.

Due to the blazing lights from the Aescher I lost about half of my 3 hours shooting time between astronomical dusk and moonrise, but when the last guests finally went to rest, the innkeeper extinguished most lights and even moved some equipment to allow me a clear shot of the house. Thanks a lot!

- Canon EOS 7D mk2
- Samyang 24mm f/1.4
- Aescher and cliff artificially lit by Low Level Lighting 
- 5 x 5 images of 10s @ ISO 3200, individually stacked for the foreground and sky
- Panorama stitched with PtGui

Thanks for all your comments and faves.

Taken on: August 24, 2016

Tags:

Aescher

Äscher

Switzerland

Schweiz

Alpstein

Astrophotography

Astro

Astronomy

Nightscape

Night

Landscape

Long Exposure

Swiss@Night

Sky

Milky Way

Milchstrasse

mountains

Canon

Canon EOS 7D mk ll

Samyang

SAMYANG 24mm f1.4

stacking

Fitswork

PTGui

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