Took this picture from Cocoa Beach...what am I seeing?

Hello. I have been shooting the stars lately and recently I was in Cocoa Beach (I live in Indiana) and captured this image. When I play around with levels, I see something of which might be the milky way (or part of it). Originally I thought this was just a cloud but I am not so sure now. I took this about 11pm pointed East, South East.

What am I seeing in the lower left hand corner (its faint but I am sure this is recognizable to those who know)?

Thanks!

It looks like either clouds or fog, and Maybe the light pollution bouncing off it.

I don't think it's clouds. I played with the levels too and it kind of does look like the Milky Way. If not, it's some other celestial body.

You got more than you might think in your image. Nice picture!
I can see Scorpious clearly in the center portion of the picture, with the Tea pot of Sagettarius in the lower left corner. Looking closer I can see the Lagoon nebula as well as a few other DSO's among all those stars.
Looks like it was a humid hazy night with the haze bouncing off the light pollution off to the south east on the right side. The rest of the white cloudiness is not clouds, It is the dense field of stars within the center of the Milky Way.
This is the result I got after a little levels adjustment and noise reduction.

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tkerr wrote in post #10394828
You got more than you might think in your image. Nice picture!
I can see Scorpious clearly in the center portion of the picture, with the Tea pot of Sagettarius in the lower left corner. Looking closer I can see the Lagoon nebula as well as a few other DSO's among all those stars.
Looks like it was a humid hazy night with the haze bouncing off the light pollution off to the south east on the right side. The rest of the white cloudiness is not clouds, It is the dense field of stars within the center of the Milky Way.
This is the result I got after a little levels adjustment and noise reduction.

Wow, thanks so much for all of the information and taking the time to adjust the image as well. I knew there was more to that shot, but I couldnt quite adjust the levels. I have the original RAW as well, but am unable to host it on photobucket for some reason.

If its not to much to ask, can you share what adjustments you made to the image so I can try it on the original? (I only have GIMP as well as the Canon Digital Photo Professional software that came with my G11)

Thanks again.

kezug wrote in post #10395114
Wow, thanks so much for all of the information and taking the time to adjust the image as well. I knew there was more to that shot, but I couldnt quite adjust the levels. I have the original RAW as well, but am unable to host it on photobucket for some reason.

If its not to much to ask, can you share what adjustments you made to the image so I can try it on the original? (I only have GIMP as well as the Canon Digital Photo Professional software that came with my G11)

Thanks again.

Photobucket won't host large RAW files, but it will host 16 bit Tiff files. But the size would still be very large. But I would like to see what I could do with a RAW or even 16 bit version of this picture.

The adjustments I made were done with Photoshop CS5 Extended so I don't know If what I have to tell you will help you with Gimp.
I Started as I always do with any astroimage with a little histogram stretching. For yours I had to adjust the Highlights and Mid-tones. Then I used a tool in Photoshop for adjusting Shadows and Highlights to help enhance the highlights and bring a little more out from the dark background as well. Lastly I used a little Gaussian Blur on a duplicate layer with a Lighten Blending change, then merge layers and save.

tkerr wrote in post #10396799
Photobucket won't host large RAW files, but it will host 16 bit Tiff files. But the size would still be very large. But I would like to see what I could do with a RAW or even 16 bit version of this picture.

The adjustments I made were done with Photoshop CS5 Extended so I don't know If what I have to tell you will help you with Gimp.
I Started as I always do with any astroimage with a little histogram stretching. For yours I had to adjust the Highlights and Mid-tones. Then I used a tool in Photoshop for adjusting Shadows and Highlights to help enhance the highlights and bring a little more out from the dark background as well. Lastly I used a little Gaussian Blur on a duplicate layer with a Lighten Blending change, then merge layers and save.

Thanks...I sent you a PM.

Wow, I COMPLETELY missed that! I must have spoke to soon, or well spoke before the experts did.

nicely done tker You too kezug