On top of the world
I took some more star shots tonight. First, a look at the night sky. This is a 30 second exposure, at f/2.8, on ISO 800, at 17mm:
I used my 105mm to get a section of the sky. This one was taken over 4 minutes at f/2.8, ISO 800. I’m amazed at how much the world moves in just 4 minutes!
Then, I put the wide angle lens on again, and randomly aimed at a set of stars. When the first image was done, I noticed something at the bottom of the image, and decided to try to get another shot. Looking through the viewfinder of a camera at night, and trying to find a particular place in the sky is not easy. And I almost got the shot I was wanting. 17mm, f/2.8, 20 minutes, ISO 200:
That is the star that is sitting nearly in line with Earth’s north axis, so it doesn’t move much in the sky as the Earth rotates. Say hello to Polaris, the North Star! It’s kind of vertigo-inducing, like a galactic-scale whirlpool sucking you in, especially at full resolution.
I’d like it more centered, at least on the horizontal, but still pretty cool! I tried to get another shot, but between taking this one and then processing the long exposure noise reduction, my camera was unusable for almost an hour. Clouds had rolled in, and the stars were no longer visible.
Oh well, I have a few more dark nights before the sun is out all the time!
I’ve been following your blog to see the cool star pictures. They are really cool. Chris tried taking some when we were in Tahiti. Of course, it wasn’t quite that dark and the ship still moved on the current, even at anchor. But it’s really neat to be able to capture stars.
that is frikkin sweet.
usps says the package we sent from nashville is there now waiting for you to pick it up! so that’s cool – if it’s true – the status said it was still in nashville until it changed just tonight.
WOW! So can you see a good amount of stars as compared to here in IN? I took my kids to the Children’s Museum yesterday and we took in a planetarium show. It was their first and they were mesmerized at seeing the “fake” stars. Learned how to find the North Star very useful.
thanks
Jerry
OH yeah! When they simulated the earth’s rotation in relationship to the North Star I got dizzy. Was very disorientating.
Hi Meagan! I’d like to try photographing star trails near the equator. Did any of Chris’s turn out?
Jerry, there is still a lot of light pollution in this area of Alaska, so I’d put the visible stars on par with some places in rural northern Indiana. Way more than Bloomington, though, since I can see so much more of the sky here.
It’s pretty interesting looking out every once and awhile, and seeing the Big Dipper basically rotate around it’s handle.
Chris’s pictures didn’t turn out that great due to motion blur. We actually weren’t that near the equator, but quite a bit south, so the constellations were different – and we didn’t recognize any even with the charts they provided. But it was a neat experiment. He might try to dig them out and put them up so you can see.
Great shots, Ryan. Thanks for sharing. Seems like more stars in one sky on one night than I have seen in a lifetime of skies and nights. Nice!
Thanks, Bob! There are only a couple of places I’ve been where I’ve seen as many stars as here. One was on a mountain in Switzerland, near the Matterhorn, and the other was on a little island in the Ten Thousand Islands area in Florida.