Milky Way above my Sahara camp in one of the purest skies on Earth (Bortle 1)

I shot this picture in the eastern part of Morocco, near the Algerian border, during an astrophotography trip. The sky there was exceptionally pure, with absolutely no light pollution (Bortle 1).

If you’re interested, you can find more of my work on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/tinmar_g/).

This image was taken during the second night of the trip. We reached Ouzina desert by 4×4, driving off-road through remote landscapes, and found the perfect place to set up camp at the base of a dune. The scenery was truly breathtaking.

Arriving on site felt almost unreal. There was nobody around, just the desert stretching endlessly around us.

The panorama was captured using a 50mm lens.

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As a reminder, the sky looks very different to the naked eye than it does in long-exposure astrophotography. With unaided vision, you can easily recognize the shape of the Milky Way and notice a few of the brightest nebula regions as very faint, diffuse glows, but you cannot see the deep reds or the intricate structures shown here.

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The Bortle Scale is a nine-level system used to measure light pollution and the quality of the night sky at a given location. It ranges from Class 1, representing the darkest skies available on Earth, where the Milky Way appears highly detailed and the zodiacal light is visible, to Class 9, which corresponds to inner-city skies where only the brightest stars and planets can be seen.

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Canon 6D (astro-modded) – Skywatcher Star Adventurer – Sigma ART 50mm
Settings: ISO 2500 – f/1.6 – 30s

So much photoshop and overexposure.

Gorgeous photo! Thank you for sharing, as well as for the interesting explanation.