Anatomy of a Composition - Star Gazing

With the first week of summer now in motion, plans are being accessed and some progress has been made.  I like to “kill two birds with one stone,” as the saying goes, and with zero offense to birds I needed to make a trip to the mountains to do some work on a property in Alma.  This property has been written about, and it’s an only going process of fixing two things while a third problem comes up.  That isn’t a complaint, just the nature of an old building in the mountains, built at a time when standards were lower and outcomes less judged.

The roof has had an annoying leak and new windows need to be installed. This will of course take multiple trips, but with the weather forecasted as being a beautiful night sky I decided that journey would start the night before, on Loveland Pass, with a session of astrophotography. I have a new, ultra wide angle lens that goes out to 14mm, which gives an incredible 104 degree field of view. I’ll share more images from it later in the main gallery, it is this particular image that has me most excited.

I have shot star-trails on multiple occasions and normally these photos are created by shooting multiple images and stacking them together. The other technique is to attempt to take one long, continuous shot allowing the stars to stream across the sensor to create the celestial arc.  There are pros and cons to each style, and I can say I have a preference yet, but I’ve wanted to try this latter technique for a long time and Wednesday night seemed to be a perfect opportunity.

Attached here is a one out long image, shot at 24mm with the North Star seated about Loveland Pass.  Multiple cars and trucks crossed the pass as the images were shot creating the light trails descending towards Summit County.  I’m really happy with the results, and have one other to share but will post them in the main galleries.

June, 2021 - As always, thank you for the support and for joining me on this adventure.

For more thoughts on some of these images, and life’s other travails, head to www.wordpress.com/alma175w  

Star Gazing - ISO 320 | F/5.6 | 3442 sec. - Single image - Sony a7riv & Sony FE 24GM