This astrophotography gallery is the collection of 9 years of long nights shooting 2-6 hours in various locations around the United States.
Startrails
A “startrail” is a type of astrophotography that uses long exposure times to capture diurnal circles, the apparent motion of stars in the night sky due to Earth’s rotation. A star-trail photograph shows individual stars as streaks across the image, with longer exposures yielding longer arcs. The term is used for similar photos captured elsewhere, such as on board the International Space Station and on Mars.
Typical shutter speeds for a star trail range from 15 minutes to several hours. However, a more practiced technique is to blend a number of frames together to create the final star trail image. I use a shutter speed of 29 seconds on every photo. Shooting in multiple exposures makes it easier to isolate and edit out the lights from aircraft, and other unwanted elements. The best results occur when the skies are absolutely clear. When the moon is not present, or in quarter phase. Most of these images are shot with wide angle lenses, but I’ve found that using a telephoto can yield longer trails in a shorter time frame.
Technically, these are composite images because I join 1 more images together in a “stack”. The “stack” is a group of images on separate layers in a photo editing program. When certain settings are selected, the objects that are stationary are combined, usually in the foreground. The objects (stars) that changed position in the frame will have all their movements appear together in the compressed image.
Milky Way
In astrophotography, unlike star trails, milky way photos are seasonal here in the northern hemisphere. The best time to see the Milky Way with the visible galactic core starts in February and ends in October. Earlier in the year, the galactic core rises just before sunrise. Later in the year, right after sunset, the milky way is fully visible in the southern sky. Often, a separate shot with a different focal plane, and lighting is shot to incorporate other elements into the composition. A variety of foregrounds and background landscapes are used as well as props and people, to make the composition more interesting. In this gallery, there are many milky way portraits and self portraits. You can read more about astrophotography here.
