Tag: Star Trails

Two-Years Ago (03-November-2015) — New Jersey

Backyard Autumn Night Sky in New Jersey: Star and Jet Trails.

Autumn early morning star and jet trails (and six meteor trails if you look closely) . Composite of 96 images taken with a Nikon D810A camera and a 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E lens (ISO 200, 24 mm, f/5.6, 120 sec). Raw images processed with Lightroom (to convert to TIF format), Capture One Pro, and Photoshop CC. The images were combined using Photoshop CC Scirpts/Statistics/Maximum. In the past I would have done this with startrails.exe, but now can do it directly within Photoshop CC with the RAW or TIF images, and not have to convert to a JPG image first. I kept the camera pointed low enough so the moon did not get into the image. The temperature got down to freezing, but the lens did not cloud over with dew or frost.

Star and jet trails. Southern view from my backyard. Composite of images taken with a Nikon D810a camera and 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E lens (ISO 200, 24 mm, f/5.6, 120 sec). (David J Mathre)
Star and jet trails. Southern view from my backyard. Composite of images taken with a Nikon D810a camera and 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E lens (ISO 200, 24 mm, f/5.6, 120 sec). (David J Mathre)

Two-Years Ago (11-October-2015) — New Jersey

Backyard Autumn Night Sky — Star and Jet Trails

View looking south from my backyard. Composite of 120 images taken from 20:00 to 23:59 with a Nikon D4 camera and 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E lens (ISO 100, 24 mm, f/5.6, 120 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro. Star trails composite processed using Photoshop CC (scripts, statistics, maximum).

Autumn Night Sky and Star and Jet Trails. View looking south from my backyard. Composite of 120 images taken from 20:00 to 23:59 with a Nikon D4 camera and 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E lens (ISO 100, 24 mm, f/5.6, 120 sec). (David J Mathre)
Autumn Night Sky and Star and Jet Trails. View looking south from my backyard. Composite of 120 images taken from 20:00 to 23:59 with a Nikon D4 camera and 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E lens (ISO 100, 24 mm, f/5.6, 120 sec). (David J Mathre)

Sunday (04-June-2017) — New Jersey

Backyard Early Morning and Daytime Spring Nature in New Jersey.

I got up really early this morning to set a camera up to try and catch a NASA launch from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The sounding rocket was supposed to release some chemicals to form artificial clouds that would glow blue, green, and red. Unfortunately, the launch was scrubbed due to high altitude clouds. Mission Update Five-years ago I caught a previous launch from the Wallops Flight Facility. I did get enough images for a composite star-trails image. Later in the morning I took my lonely Leica T camera out to check out the new wildflowers in my backyard.

Startrails looking southeast. Backyard night sky in New Jersey. Composite of 30 images taken with a Nikon D810a camera and 16-35 mm f/4 lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/4, 120 sec). (David J Mathre)
Startrails looking southeast. Backyard night sky in New Jersey. Composite of 30 images taken with a Nikon D810a camera and 16-35 mm f/4 lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/4, 120 sec). (David J Mathre)


Nine-Years Ago (25-February-2008) — Colorado

Elderhostel “Photography in the Southwest” Workshop Day 1. Kelly Place & Canyon of the Ancients National Monument.

The first full day of an Elderhostel/Road Scholar photography workshop at Kelly Place — a Bed & Breakfast near Cortez, Colorado. I was attending the workshop with my Father and Brother. I went out on my own in the morning to take some pictures of Sleeping Ute mountain. After lunch walked around the site to look at some of the historical buildings and then went for a short hike into Canyon of the Ancients National Monument which is right next to Kelly’s Place. After it got dark, I set up a camera to take some star trail images.

Sleeping Ute Mountain and moon panorama on an early winter morning at Kelley's Place near Cortez, Colorado. Image taken with a Nikon D3 camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 20 mm, f/16, 1/1.7 sec). (David J Mathre)
Sleeping Ute Mountain and moon panorama on an early winter morning at Kelley’s Place near Cortez, Colorado. Image taken with a Nikon D3 camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 20 mm, f/16, 1/1.7 sec). (David J Mathre)



Larger size images from the slide show can be viewed and purchased here.



Larger size images from the slideshow can be viewed and purchased here.

Nine-Years Ago (11-February-2008) — New Jersey.

Backyard Night Sky in New Jersey: Star Trails.

Winter star trails looking south from my backyard. Composite of ten images taken with a Nikon D3 camera and 17-35 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 17 mm, f/4, 600 sec). A Nikon MC-36 intervalometer was used to trigger the camera for the 10 minute exposures (with a 3 seconds delay between exposures to allow the data to be written to the CF memory card.

Winter night sky -- star and jet trails looking south. Composite of 10 images taken with a Nikon D3 camera and 17-35 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 17 mm, f/4, 600 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro, and the composite created using Photoshop CC (statistics, maximum). (David J Mathre)
Winter night sky — star and jet trails looking south. Composite of 10 images taken with a Nikon D3 camera and 17-35 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 17 mm, f/4, 600 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro, and the composite created using Photoshop CC (statistics, maximum). (David J Mathre)

Backyard Night Sky in New Jersey: Star Trails.