Re: Airglow or an artifact of editing? Milky Way at Big Sur
I agree that the green is airglow. I'm not so sure about the blue/cyan color above it, near the middle of the image. I haven't gotten airglow that color. I've certainly gotten blue from Rayleigh scattering if there is any moon at all, but the moon shouldn't have been out at the time and place you were shooting. I'd just want to be careful that I wasn't introducing that somewhere in post.
I know some photographers dislike airglow. I feel the opposite and consider it beautiful. With sunsets, we're always the same sun, and it's the sky conditions and whatever else you've included in frame that make the photo different from others. Similarly, it's always the same Milky Way, but airglow, foreground, and various temporal conditions can make our images fresh.
Edit to add: The red-orange brown above the green airglow is about the right color for the galactic dust that makes up a large portion of good Milky Way images.
--Chris S.
Aug 31, 2025 at 11:06 PM
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