On the second night of the Perseid meteor shower, my husband and I went to Eagle Lake in Acadia National Park. I was hoping for some more interesting foregrounds and lots of falling
stars. Definitely got more interesting compositions, but didn't catch a
single star. The parking area is a five minute drive from my house and while we stood there letting our eyes adjust, watching layers of stars appear overhead, I thought, "Sixteen years here, and I'm still gobsmacked on a regular basis. There are worse ways to choose a hometown."
We saw plenty of shooting stars, though, and it was beautiful out there with little lake
ripples lapping the shore and the occasional bullfrog making sleepy
noises. They sound like very large rubber bands to me. That's the Milky Way at the far right, looking like smoke behind the spruce trees.
Not one of my
photos came out the way I intended them to, but some look pretty cool anyway. I have a lot to learn about star photography (astrophotography
for those of us who like ten-dollar words) but I'm an expert at working with
serendipity. In fact, this one (taken while trying to master an unfamiliar wide-angle lens in the dark) might be my favorite from the night:
These photos are mystical and breath-taking, Jennifer. I was used to seeing incredible skies like this when we lived in Wyoming and then we were transferred to Oklahoma for a dozen years - and I never saw the Milky Way or even got close to a sky like this, even though we lived in the country. Now we're in NW Montana, and while it is often cloudy or the skies are smoky from wildfires, occasionally we see a sky like you saw here and it blows me away, too.
ReplyDeleteWhy couldn't you see the stars in Oklahoma?
DeleteThese photos are beautiful. I stargaze in my backyard - I live outside of Tucson, Arizona. (We've got dark sky laws & rules plus lots of powerful telescopes in this region.) And whenever I take the time to just go outside and let my eyes adjust, I am amazed. Thanks for sharing these photographs. I've never tried astrophotography.
DeleteI'm a big fan of dark sky laws - we just started implementing them on the island a few years ago and even here they make a difference. It isn't very hard to take this kind of photo if you have a DSLR - I've got a bunch of tutorials collected here: http://pinterest.com/jenniferb/photography-tutorials-night/. In a nutshell, focus on infinity, set your ISO to something over 800, use a wireless shutter release and a tripod, use a wide angle lens, and take shots at about 20 seconds. On the other hand, if you want to take really amazing star photos like this: http://news.alpine-photography.com/2013/06/get-your-stars-right-tool-long-exposure.html, that does take some serious skill and persistence.
DeleteThanks for the photography tips. I'll give them a try. At the moment I am trying to make a lunar alphabet: this takes no skill, just dumb luck. On full moons, I go outside and try to get the blur of the moon into the shape of letters. So far, I've got my daughter's name. Luckily it's only 4 letters!
DeleteKelsi, that's such a cool idea! Have you posted them anywhere (like Flickr?) I'd love to see those.
DeleteI do not have a flickr account. And interestingly, it started by accident. My husband and my daughter and I were in our backyard enjoying a bonfire - I was trying to take glowing family bonfire pictures when I just turned my camera to the moon and started messing around with a slow shutter setting. I looked at my results and said, "That looks like an r!" And then I made the connection between letters and my daughter's name and now it's a project that I work on v e r y slowly.
DeleteSTUNNING! I'm so going to those tutorial sites!!!
ReplyDelete