Shooting the Sky.

[ian408]

Those of you who followed our wonderful trip into Wild Utah saw some
great shots of the night sky. Here's one of mine...

http://ian408.smugmug.com/photos/155713837-M.jpg

Taught by Artist In Residence Marc Muench, we painted the rocks with light
while holding the shutter open for an extended period. The result were some
cool shots. Not to mention the fun of hanging out and talking cameras.

Backpacker magazine had an article on light pollution in the national parks.
It's a problem and NPS is taking steps to reduce the amount of light in the
parks by removing parking lot lights and installing low sodium vapor
lamps where possible. To date, the effort has been combined to some of the
smaller parks to see what works and what doesn't.

A guy by the name of Chad Moore is spearheading the project for the
NPS. He's also the shooter and his stuff is pretty cool.

Back to the photography. If you look through the magazine, you'll see some
great star field shots. Sky and Telescope has an article with some online (http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/3311306.html)
shots and a bit of a discussion on light pollution.

A press release (http://www.darksky.org/news/press-2007-04-19.php) discussing Natural Bridges and it's role as the first Dark Sky Park.

So why the discussion? Well, I'd like to give this a twirl. Not that I'll get
anything as cool as Mr. Moore but I'm willing to give it a chance.

What do you think?


Ian

[SteveF]

I missed that trip because of one lousy engagement. Couldn't believe that some friends wouldn't re-schedule their wedding for me. :scratch

This shot looks like fun.

Seems that including polaris is a good idea - it's kind of close to the top edge here.

I'd crop a little off of the bottom. Not too much, but the lower part I'm not sure it adds too much to the image.

I'd fix the vignetting if you shot raw - esp in the lower right hand corner, although a crop might fix this.

I'm wondering about light pollution - the sky seems lighter than I'd expect for the middle of Utah.

Anyway - great image. Wish I'd taken one like it too. :rolleyes

[Marc Muench]

Great post Ian. The info is interesting, as I too have seen the lights of Vegas from over 100 miles away at night. Your image is a bit bright although I usually expose the dusk sky this way myself with the understanding that I will get longer trails and darken the entire image later in post. I suppose you were listening to me:dunno
Don't forget, you now have something to do all night:barb

[pathfinder]

Natural Bridges Nat Monument is a great place for a Dark Sky - it is a long way from anywhere.

Nightingale and I spent an afternoon there after leaving Grand Junction. Great scenery, and unlike lots of National Parks, very little in the way of tourists.:thumb