Star Trails Album

Star Trails Album

This gallery is of the many star trails I have photographed in years past. They are in order by date. The Star Trails were photographed on Naches Heights unless otherwise noted.

January 22nd, 2012 - Polaris (North star) is the bright short streak at the center. This is the North end of our spinning top called Earth. Nice little meteor in the picture also. Notice all the different colors of the stars and the trails get longer the further away you are from Polaris. Think of a spinning top that you are looking down on, but in this case you are sitting on it looking up at the North star.

August 12th, 2012 - This was taken near Hell's Crossing on the American River during the Perseid meteor shower. I didn't get any meteors, but a nice star trail of the Little Dipper. We did see a lot of meteors that night, but they were out of the field of view of the camera (my luck). It was very dark night there and I was able to use ISO 100 with the camera.

August 12th, 2012 - This is a larger image of the little dipper taken below at American River.

August 16th, 2012 - I pointed the camera at the Big Dipper as I knew this was in the commercial airplane flight path. I forgot the International Space Station was due to make a pass over that area (lower left). The airplanes stick pretty close to the designated flight path. There are 8 separate airplane trails shown, along with the ISS.

August 17th, 2012 - This picture is centered on the North star (Polaris). I knew the International Space station (long line) would make a close pass to it. I did not know that a small plane would also fly by, with its red blinking light. On the lower right section of the picture, notice a small dot. This is a meteor coming straight at us. The break in the ISS trail is when the camera clicked to take another 30 second exposure.

September 7th, 2012 - This is a picture taken directly South and low in the horizon looking in the Teapot area of Sagittarius in the heart of the Milky Way. You can see that the sky is not as dark as we pickup some skyglow from the atmosphere, along with light pollution near the horizon.

September 11th, 2012 - Looking higher up in the South, just above the celestial equator, you come to the constellation Aquila with its bright star Altair. You can see it in the lower part of the picture as a bright lavender streak. This is in the heart of the Summer Milky Way.

October 7th, 2012 - I aimed the camera at a commercial airplane flight path near the Big DIpper to catch this unique look at the night sky. There are 14 trails from airplanes passing by. The bright stars are in the handle of the big dipper.

October 10th, 2012 - A larger star trail taken just East of Polaris, showing the rich star area of Cassiopeia and Perseus.

November 10th, 2012 - This star trail was made pointing the camera South toward the Teapot in Sagittarius. Notice the sky glow near the horizon, partly due to the rich milky way in that area. Also notice the much longer star trails as compared to the area around the North Star (Polaris). A silhouette of a large Pine tree is on the left.

November 10th, 2012 - The blue star trail near the center is very near 0 declination. Think of this as the equator on our spinning top (earth). Notice how long the streaks are and the dim ones show a little bit of serration to them. This is actually the period between the 30 seconds shots. The bright streak in the upper part is Altair in the constellation Aquila. Notice how the center star is straight and the top star bend up toward the Northern pole and the lower ones bend down toward the South pole.

November 26th, 2012 - An unusual star trail with the International Space Station. In this partially cloudy sky, shortly after dusk. The ISS made a pass in the same area of the sky as the star trails formed. Notice how one of the bright stars aligned with the ISS which does not form a circular trail like the stars around Polaris.

February 1st, 2013 - This trail was looking South in the area of the constellation Orion. The bright trail at the bottom is the bright star Sirius, glowing as some clouds moved through it, which is one of the problems you will incur on partially clear nights. This trail was taken using an intervalometer with a 1 second delay after each picture for a total time of 30 seconds for each image.

March 8th, 2013 - This was taken looking South Southwest. At the upper right is the bright star Procyon in Canis Minor. Near the bottom is the bright star Sirius in Canis Major. Sirius is the brightest star visible in the sky. Notice how it is wider at the right. This was caused by the wind coming up and moving the camera a little from side to side in the last hour of the trail. In between is the constellation Orion. The three evenly spaced trails in the upper area are the belt of Orion and below that you can see a dim trail, then two bright ones. This is the area where the Orion nebula is located. The bright star below that is Rigel and below and to the left of Rigel is Saiph. These form the two bottom bright stars in the constellation Orion.

March 9th, 2013 - Similar to the preceding picture of the constellation Orion, but I changed a couple of things. The picture was started 10 minutes before Nautical Twilight and I moved the image up so the entire Orion constellation is visible and framed it in a nearby Pine tree. The bright yellow star near the top is Betelgeuse and just below it on the right is Bellatrix, than Procyon as in the preceeding image. Sirius is not visible in this picture.

March 18th, 2013 - This is a comet trail of Comet PanSTARRS as it made it's way to the Northern hemisphere in the Spring of 2013. Looking toward Bethel Ridge, it just faded into the soup near the horizon. This was a naked eye comet and put on quite a show. I used my 70-300mm telephoto lens set at 135mm (200mm equivalent) to take this image.

March 30th, 2013 - This star trail taken in March, shows the rotation of our planet over a 3 hour period. If you look hard you can see the red dots of some small airplanes. It's pretty hard to make a long star trail anymore without airplane interference, although in this image the distraction is minimal.

March 31st, 2013 - This is an interesting star trail featuring the planet Jupiter as the bright trail on the right. Directly above and near the edge is a group of short trails called the Pleades cluster (seven sisters) and above that is Elnath in Taurus. Below Jupiter, the long bright trail is Aldebaran located in the Hyades star cluster of Taurus at the center of the picture. The star next to Aldebaran coming in from the top left is Alhena in Gemini. The lower left features the bright stars Betelgeuse and Bellatrix in the upper area of Orion as they set in the Apple tree at the bottom. At the very bottom left are the three belt stars in Orion. Also notice the small bright meteor.

May 4th, 2013 - This is a similar star trail to the prior one, but with slightly different settings for the camera. The trail is goes through a Cedar tree near our house.

May 5th, 2013 - This trail taken at dusk shows the bright planet Jupiter setting in the West. Jupiter is in the middle with the bright stars of Gemini, Castor (right) and Pollux (left) entering the upper part of the image. The bright star going off the right of the picture between Castor and Pollus is Elnath in Taurus. This star trail was started at Nautical Twilight.

May 6th, 2013 - This star trail shows Saturn (center long bright trail) and just above it, Spica in the constellation Virgo. A ways below Saturn on the left is Sabik and just above Saturn on the left is Zeta, both in the constellation Ophiuchus. Below Sabik is the long trail of Zubenelgenubi and above Zeta is the long trail of Zubeneschamali both in Libra. A small airplane trail is near the bottom.

May 9th, 2013 - This image is in the main flight path overhead and contains airplane trails in the main path and one small plane not on the commercial flight path. You can also see three meteors, two small bright ones and a small dot just to the left of the airplane path. The was in an area of the sky just below the big dipper and the bright star in the lower left is Menkalinan in the constellation Auriga.

June 4th, 2013 - In this 4 hour star trail of Polaris, the International Space Station made a close pass, less than a degree from the North Star. It is unusual for the ISS to pass this close and a wonderful sight to enjoy. I was watching it live as it made the close pass.

June 30th, 2013 - This image was taken to the North looking directly below Polaris to the horizon. The stars have a distinct upward swing to them and this star trail was started at nautical twilight, so the lower horizon is definitely not dark yet and the stars there washed out from the lighter sky. Most of the stars in this image are dim stars.

July 6th, 2013 - In this almost 4 hours star trail, you can see the area below Polaris down to the tree tops. The bright little dots are meteors coming straight at you. Luckily, they burn up long before hitting earth.

July 9th, 2013 - Looking straight South on a Summer evening. This is a busy part of the Milky Way. The short trails on the right and at the lower part of the picture are from the constellation Scorpius. The long trails that come in from the right are from the constellation Sagittarius, which is in the heart of the Southern Milky Way. Notice the bright meteor.

July 26th, 2013 - In this image of the International Space Station making a close pass by Polaris (North Star), I developed it a little different using an infrared filter in my software. This gives it a different look and definitely shows where all the heat sources are. The gap near the center of the ISS trail is were the shutter reset for another 30 second exposure(one of the 310 exposures).

August 6th, 2013 - A look at the heart of the Summer Milky Way. This star trail of the South end of the Milky Way in Summer shows a very bright orange trail of Antares in the constellation Scorpius in the lower right, along with the bright short trails of the claws above it. All of the trails entering the left side of the picture are from Sagittarius, which is in the dense heart of the Southern Milky Way. You can also see one dim meteor and several small airplane trails.

August 12, 2013 - In this star trail taken during the Perseid Meteor shower, I only managed to capture the International Space Station and a few small airplanes. The ISS lost the Sun's reflection before it crossed the entre field. This is proof that capturing a meteor is shear luck and requires a very dark site and wide angle lens, to try and cover as much area as possible. I did capture one dim meteor that was barely visible from this location. The bright stars near the top are from Casseopeia and the ones at the bottom are from Perseus

September 9th, 2013 - Taken at the Table Mountain observing area through the trees looking North.

October 16th, 2013 - I started this trail before the sky was totally dark and managed to catch a bright meteor in the picture. Notice the lower part of the picture is lighter. This is caused by the glow as you get closer to the horizon.

September 12, 2015 - This star trail was taken at the Table Mountain Star Party site above Ellensburg. It was made from 327 images over a 3 hour period. This is the first star trail I have made with my Nikon D5100 using its built in interval timer. Works pretty good.

jAlbum + FancyBox

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