(Click the photo to enlarge)

This photo really needs to be bigger to appreciate it. I’m happy with how it turned out. I took it while traveling, visiting my parents in New Mexico. I spent my high school years in a room that received evening shade from that tree. This night in particular it looked beautiful, and I really enjoyed the way the light of the porch light up the branches.

Cottonwood and stars is brought to you by j.ronald.lee - photography / journal

One of the 400 plus shots taken to comprise the video I posted here a few days ago, the first ninety minutes worth were all taken before any clouds rolled in. Here are 137 photos merged using the excellent (and free) stacking program startrails. Each shot taken with a Nikon D90 with a NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8 lens. Taken at f/1.8, ISO 200, 39 second exposures (one second in between each shot).

Star trail photo is brought to you by j.ronald.lee - photography / journal

Got up early today to see if I could get some shots of the International Space Station as it flew over. If you ever decide to do this, I recommend Spaceweather.com’s satellite tracking service. It’s a lot easier to use than NASA’s satellite tracker, in my opinion – if only because of how easy it is to read the output.

The first time I looked this information up, I saw that the ISS was going to be over my house in… one minute. Yikes! I jumped up, grabbed my camera and tripod and ran outside. I spotted the space station immediately… if you have a brightness index of -3 or lower, it’s BRIGHT (these images are from a -3.6 brightness index pass – the lower the number, the brighter it is). At this level, you literally need to be in a rainstorm to miss it. The station moves FAST.

This morning’s fly-by lasted all of two minutes and twenty-three seconds. If you don’t have your gear set up ahead of time, forget it.

These images were taken with a 50mm lens, f / 2.8, ISO 400, and all are ten second exposures. As much as I would have liked to have tried some different settings, there just wasn’t enough time.

Clicking any of these images will open them up larger, and you can scroll through the collection by hovering your mouse on the left or right side of the large image to get an arrow (if you have trouble with this, please let me know).

What do you think? Are any of these particularly interesting? Which one do you like best?

International Space Station is brought to you by j.ronald.lee - photography / journal

Our Ocracoke vacation rental had a Widow’s Walk on the roof. Looking down, you really got a sense for how steep it was. But the view was totally worth it… The star photograph was taken with a 50mm lens, just placing the camera on the rail pointed up and pressing the shutter.

On the Widow’s Walk is brought to you by j.ronald.lee - photography / journal

With my lens dialed all the way back to 18 mm and an exposure of almost 29 minutes, here’s my first attempt at star trails.

Here’s the full EXIF info if you’re interested, but more interesting to me was what it looked like untouched.  If you scroll down you’ll see the original image looks like broad daylight.

Clouds rolled in during the capture. With a 29 minute exposure, you never know what you’re gonna get.

What are star trails? It’s what the stars look like when you open the shutter of your camera, and leave it that way for a long time. The stars seem to rotate in the sky (it’s really we who rotate), and each star carves a small arc of white light on the picture.

In a capture of 29 minutes, we’d expect each star to travel 2% around the circle, or about 7.25 degrees. In this case, I don’t know when the clouds rolled in and cut them off from view, but probably right at the end of the exposure. The moon was about 94% full, so when it rose, it really lit things up. Thus the unedited photo looks like daylight with dim streaks.

My first star trails is brought to you by j.ronald.lee - photography / journal