Starry Mountain Light Trails

nobody@flickr.com (Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 14:48:00 -0800

Mike Berenson - Colorado Captures posted a photo:

Even the northern stars shine bright above the rugged peaks and traffic on Colorado's high mountain passes. This composite image was taken from a hairpin turn on Loveland Pass, west of Denver, Colorado.

To make this image happen, I ended up returning a couple of times because I just wasn't happy with my initial results. In the end, I used a 50mm f/1.2 lens to get the most light and quality possible. I stacked 10 8 second exposures of the stars with a program called Registar (from Auriga Imaging). Then, I blended the stacked image of the stars with a single 4 minute long-exposure showing the mountains and light trails in the foreground.

I would have loved some more clouds dancing around like in my last shot, but at least I got some great quality and those light trails in the foreground look really cool this time. I learned that to get the light trails to show good colors, I needed an exposure time of at least 4 minutes. But with all the traffic, it was tough to get just tail lights and none of the blinding headlights. With time and patience, I finally got what I came for. :-)
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Starry Mountain Light Trails