Are we really doing the whole "City on The Edge of Forever" reference here?

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Are we really doing the whole
Are we really doing the whole "City on The Edge of Forever" reference here?

Spoiler: Yes... Yes, we are.

Delicate Arch in Arches National Park guards the entrance to the galactic core of the Milky Way. Is it the 'Guardian of Forever' from the aforementioned "City on the Edge of Forever" episode of "Star Trek: The Original Series"? Delicate Arch here like the one from the show is displaying the past through its portal, a glimpse into the ether of stardust from which we were made from.

This was my first time seeing this landmark... Alone. And I don't mean just because Elisha wasn't with me, I mean there was no one here. My first photo from this is timestamped at 23:43, meaning I left the trailhead somewhere nearly an hour prior. Leaving at this hour, I was flagged down by numerous tourists wondering why I was going against the grain of traffic on a moonless night to an area devoid of artificial light... Not understanding the wonder of the arch even "without light".

I'd wrap up the shooting a little after midnight and stumble down the trail, this time finding the trail down (hitting the slick rock in the last quarter mile in the dark I started to get off the trail). About a quarter of the way down, I came into the path of a family heading up the trail, like the tourists before, I had to stop and ask, as it was a bit strange to find a family at midnight thirty... But it turns out, they were local from the Moab area and did this quite frequently... Something I wish I lived in the area and had a family to do with.

And for what we've all came here to ask about: the Workflow!
While this is "one Photo" I've run it through DXO Pure Raw, I then made a virtual copy in Lightroom, adjusted the exposure for the Arch and foreground, and took the other one and adjusted it for the sky. I took both copies of the same photo into Photoshop and blended them using a mask to create what you see here.

Nikon D750:
Nikor 20mm
f/1.8
25 second exposure

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Taken on: August 24, 2019
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