Photo credit: Cory Mottice
Photographer, meteorologist and outdoorsman Cory Mottice managed to capture a once-in-a-lifetime image of the Milky Way rising above a nearby thunderstorm while he was out storm chasing in Eastern Montana on June 4, 2018. “We left our home base around 11 AM and drove about 3 hours to get to our target city where we grabbed a bite to eat and waited patiently for storms to develop. We were sitting on a dirt/gravel road in the pouring rain, patiently waiting. As soon as the rain ended we jumped out and set up our tripods. After about 10 minutes of shooting, we noticed the stars coming out with the clear skies behind the storm,” said Mottice. Continue reading to see more photos.
“After several shots, I determined that my best bet would be to shoot at an ISO of 2500 with a 25 sec exposure at f/2.8 (using my Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 lens with my Nikon D610). I also needed just a single lightning strike to occur within that 25 seconds, otherwise the storm would be too blown out. I continuously took shots at those settings until the storm had essentially quit producing visible lightning from our perspective. More and more of the Milky Way was visible with each passing shot,” Mottice told Peta Pixel.
