Sep
28
2007Star Trails
John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, OR, USA
Canon EOS 5D | ISO 800 | 16mm | F/2.8
Captured on the night of the Perseid meteor showers at the Painted Hills in Oregon — a very fine place to avoid light pollution and observe an incredibly crisp skies.
Using an intervalometer, my friend John and I shot 340 exposures over a 4-hour period. We simply setup the Canon 5D to shoot 8-second exposures until the extended battery ran out — while we were sleeping nearby at the spectacular Painted Hills overlook.
I stacked all 340 exposures through a nifty piece of software called Startrail. The tree was lit briefly by cars leaving the area in the middle of the night resulting in this rather surreal composition.
Ted
Wow! This is very cool! How did you settle on 8 seconds per exposure? It must have been cold at night, so even with an extended battery I’m surprised you were able to get so many shots. It’s nice that the tree wasn’t blown out by that car. And those red lines? Planes?
Astex
Intervalometer, thanks.
anne [wideangle.ca]
Thanks Ted. I’m not entirely sure what the streaking red lines are. Possibly shooting stars — but given their short duration, I wouldn’t expect them to register so strongly… Planes or satellites are more likely. Either way, I chose to keep them in the final shot even though it would have been easy to remove the culprit frames…
D'Arcy Norman
wow. wow. wowowowow.
amazing shot!
I wouldn’t have thought to stack 340 shortish exposures! I’d have tried to figure out a way to get a single 4-hour exposure. which would have sucked, and been really noisy. this is great! have to try it someday…
Richard H
Now that is insane!! Great work capturing all those shots and blending them together.
What’s even weirder is the plane trails cutting through the image from the horizon.
Good job!
Zoshia
Wow! That’s a stunning photograph!
Nate
I gotta agree with everyone else, pretty stunning image Anne. I think I especially like the way the brighter stars add a sort of mosaic feel to the shot.
Philip
Wow…and wow…very cool photograph.
balaji shankar V
Excellent piece of work! Thanks for all those details too !
balaji shankar V
Wow! this is spectacular! Thanks for all those details too!
Thalie
Wow +++ Tu t’es vraiment surpassée !!! C’est à la fois plein de créativité et inspirant… Bravo!
Hugo
Magazine Photograph of the Year!
Non: Magazine Photograph of the Century!
Anne, quelle artiste tu es! Je suis ému!
john
Nice job on the processing Anne. Glad to see that the software emulates what we would have gotten with film. Looks like we may have gotten a little lucky with the background illumination from the headlights and yes those do look like airplane streaks.
Suvir Venkataraman
Wow, that’s amazing! I wondered how you got the intensity of the trails.
derLitograph
heavy. great great picture
Justin
There are so many stars. I had no idea. Amazing shot. Did it take hours to process all those photos?
Kristi
I’d like to say “simply stunning,” but truly it is more along the lines of “complicatedly stunning,” isn’t it? Either way, I’m completely taken with this photo.
Charles
Wow. Awesome!
pixel
Wow! Amazing shot!
Saxi
very impressive – wow!
Jodene
I’ll add the 11th WOW and the 4th STUNNING. Very very cool. Back in the day this would have been done with one super long exposure right? Stacking 340 images digitally is quite interesting. I’m glad you left the red streaks in. They are soooo part of the night scene. Great stuff, Anne!