A Sky Full of Stars

One night I stumbled upon this site (literally. I was on StumbleUpon) and was so amazed by the photos of the starry night sky.

We all live under that sky every single day, but many of us live in cities polluted with so much light that the stars are barely visible. Or we are too busy rushing through our days and we forget to stop and admire the heavens above us, full of twinkly magic.

I am lucky enough to live out in the country, and one night, shortly after viewing Ben Canales’ video at the bottom of the page I linked to above, I arrived home kind of late at night, got out of the car, looked up at the sky and stopped in my tracks. There were so many stars!
I went in the house, re-watched Ben’s video, took notes, got my camera set up on the tripod (no easy feat on my sloped rocky driveway), took numerous test shots (which takes some time with a 30 second exposure) and…

the Milky Way!

Getting these shots was actually very easy. It mostly requires patience, and warm clothes and a flashlight. (And a little knowledge of Camera Raw to process the photos.)

I put the horizon in the shot below to give some perspective.

So, turn off those lights and get out there to admire the stars in the sky.

You can see more of Ben Canales’ work here: www.thestartrail.com. I want to thank him for inspiring me.