Star Trails In The Patriarch Grove

I am standing alone in the dark at 11,000 feet in the Patriarch Grove of Bristlecone Pines in the  White Mountains of California. One of the least light polluted places in the US. The sun has been down now for quite a while and I am thinking night is in full swing. The stars are out, getting bright and clear. The North Star is visible and all of the stars of the Big Dipper are coming into view. I turn on the camera and point it toward Polaris, the North Star. It is going to be a four minute exposure. The time passes slowly. Finally the red light goes off, and I see the captured image in the viewfinder on the back of my camera. Oh my, where did all that light come from?

The stars are popping with brightness

If you leave a camera on for a while it will pick up light you don’t notice with the naked eye. You may think it is dark, but the camera sees so much better than we do.  On this occasion it was absorbing all of the last remaining light as the sun sank farther and farther below the horizon. I waited a while longer and begin to notice the difference between what I thought was darkness and what I see now, real darkness. Now the stars are just popping with brightness. It is time to begin a two or three hour sequence of shooting 4 minute segments. Four minute shot, one second pause, four minutes shot again, and repeat for two hours. These sequences can be set  up to go all night long if you want.  In fact, some photographers will set up their cameras and leave them running all night, coming back in the morning to collect their gear. I choose to do a couple hours worth, keeping my camera company all the while. With two hours of shooting I’ll have about 30 four minute frames; if I go an extra hour I’ll have 45. How long I stay will depend on how cold it gets! The next day, all of those little segments will be put together in Photoshop to create one single image showing the continuous light tracks of the stars.

Here is one from the Bristlecone Pine Forrest that night in the White Mountains. About two hours worth of star trails.

For the Photographer:

You can get a foreground object, like this Bristlecone Pine, in your shot in a couple of ways. One is to take shots of it while there is still enough daytime light. Then leaving your camera perfectly still on your tripod, wait for night to start shooting the star trails. The other way is to light paint the object after dark. This is done by turning on the camera and shining a flashlight on the object. Only a very brief amount of light will do.  Try experimenting a few times and  when you have captured the look you want, proceed to taking pictures of the star trails. Putting it all together after the shoot is a bit technical but well worth the effort.  And the real payoff is being able to hang out with the stars, and meteors and the grandeur of the Milky Way.  On the night this shot was taken, the space shuttle flew over.   What a sight to see!