Enjoy these shots of my star gazer lillys.

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Happy 4th of July!!!

I love camping and I love stargazing. Sometimes I've combined stargazing with photography but I had never tried to take pictures around the campfire before. This Saturday I went with some friends and I could not resist to bring the camera out and try my hand at some night pictures. I was fascinated with how the fire made everything look so  peaceful, and even the trees around us seemed to  glow with the firelight. The best thing though, was looking into the flames, it even seemed to be looking back at you. Finally it was time to put out the fire and go into the tents, by then the only light left was just the  starlight filtering through the trees.

Well I was inspired by Paulamouse, (I'm always inspired by you Paul especially the love you have for Cindy) with his star photos and the followup by peektar.

Now these two shots are not great artistically but were a fun excersize I tried back in 2001 in a trip to Zion and Yellowstone NP. They were both shot around Midnight with a near to full moon. If I remember correctly they were shot with Fuji Film ASA 400 and stopped down a bit but well over a minute exposures. I scanned the Negatives with a Dimage' Scanner.
Little grainy, little out of focus but ahh just throwing *#@% against the wall.

The streaks you see are Stars

Zion NP at Midnight

Old Faithful at Midnight

Space from the southern hemisphere
F2.0 30 sec ISO800

On Monday night I was standing out on my deck admiring the clear night sky when a meteor burned across the sky. Beautiful to say the least, it began as a bluish white streak, went to green and exploded into a shower of scattered sparkles as it burned out. Total silence of course. A bit later another smaller one. My mind kicked into gear and I thought what a great shot it would make if I could catch one of these babies with the camera. I set things up on the tripod and took many shots but did not get one shot of a meteor, in fact I only saw one other and it was not in my camera's field of view. I did however get a few interesting starfield shots. Nothing great.

Starfield 1 If you look at the stars in this shot you will see a variety of colors. Hot stars burn red, cool ones blue. In the upper left is the constellation Cassiopia and to the lower right is the Pleides star cluster. The large orange planet to the right of the Pliedes is the planet Mars.

Starfield s

I intend to try as the weather permits to capture a meteor, and, if anyone out there should happen to try their luck also, I would be interested in seeing the shot and knowing how you did it.

 I found it very hard to photograph the stars and the moon together the other night, so the stars are a little blurred..but what I loved about it was the color of the stars..hope you enjoy... Stars and Moon

These shots are influenced by Troy Paiva of Lost America fame, who is probably one of my favorite photographers.

The House at Night
The Stars (this one did not focus as well as I had planned - but I still like it)
The Yard at Night
The Window
The Window (cropped)