Stars over an icy Lake Michigan

Home for break and made some friends sit still on the ice jusssst long enough:

Thanks a beautiful image !, lovely to see Orion against a nice dark sky !

Alan

Nice shot, is that a city in the background?

Cheers

Darren

Edit: can you guys let me know about the exposure, too? I had to edit on my laptop and while they look good to me, my friend said they were really underexposed and he couldn't even make out the snow in the first post.

Thanks guys. No, that's not a city out there, just the horizon on the lake. I don't actually know where the color is coming from, the moon was maybe 30 degrees above the horizon behind the shot and this is just looking out into an empty expanse of water. The white line by the horizon is the ice line. It was a few hours after sunset but I wonder if maybe it's some of the light of someone else's sunset and the combination of water and atmosphere was enough for the color to be picked up.

It showed up in all of my pics taken out across the water:

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It's quite an impact, and what a good concept.

If the figures were less central, and more empty space on the right (the way they are looking) it would be a stunning image.

Not a lot of detail visible in the second image?

Thanks Les, I see what you mean... maybe I can drag them back out! The second image was mainly just to show the color on the horizon, even though it was well after sunset and completely dark across the water.

Here's a portrait crop, I think it works a little better for composition:

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