Blue hour milky way shot over my favourite tree. Jupiter and Saturn to the bottom right of the picture

A timelapse of the milky way rising over the Andes with Jupiter and Saturn in tow was next on my list. After braving the freezing cold desert night for 3 hours my mission was complete.

After my taste of photographing Jupiter and Saturn in my last post I wanted to go back and this time not only capture Jupiter, Saturn and the milky way over one of my favourite trees but also do it at blue hour and capture a timelapse of the whole event.

The thing about the Atacama Desert is that winter is the best time for astronomy as the milky way is high in the sky throughout the winter months meaning spectacular photos. The only problem being that winter in the desert at 3,500 meters above sea level is absolutely freezing. So, I had to wrap up until I couldn't physically put any more layers on, fill my flask with hot water to sip mate (a south american tea infusion) all night, my favourite playlists stacked on my ipod and play the long run.

I managed to capture my blue hour/milky way/jupiter/saturn photo before finally setting my camera to shoot consecutively for a few hours and stitch together my timelapse in post processing. Here's how it all turned out.