Album Night Shots and Star Trails

Out trying some night pictures. Both of these are from Schramm State Park in Nebraska. The first is looking out over the Platte River. The glow on the horizon is from Lincoln about 30 miles away. I was trying some light painting on the second picture. Both exposures were 30 seconds.
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Nice. Both of them. You think that was the ISS on the first one?

What was your paint source on the second?
 
Nice. Both of them. You think that was the ISS on the first one?

What was your paint source on the second?

I have a phone app that locates the ISS so I checked and it was below the horizon at that time - but in about the right area. I think it had to be an airplane. The light streak is intermittent with a pattern of two white lights side by side followed by a single red light midway between the white ones. It seems like the kind of pattern the running lights on an airplane fuselage and wing tips would make.

I used an LED headlamp held waist high pointed at the sidewalk in front of me as I walked quickly away from the camera. I was concerned that it was going to be too bright but it turned out not to be. I did turn down highlights in post.
 
All the attention goes to its brothers and sisters but how about some applause for our star? It's not easy to look at but sure is neat the more I've ever known about it. The lower smudge sent a solar flare and coronal mass ejection our way, dropping aurora visibility south, potentially all the way to SLC last night, and could mess with our communications networks. And each of those cool sunspots are bigger than Earth. I check out the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory often to see what is going on with that big glowing ball of ours.

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All the attention goes to its brothers and sisters but how about some applause for our star? It's not easy to look at but sure is neat the more I've ever known about it. The lower smudge sent a solar flare and coronal mass ejection our way, dropping aurora visibility south, potentially all the way to SLC last night, and could mess with our communications networks. And each of those cool sunspots are bigger than Earth. I check out the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory often to see what is going on with that big glowing ball of ours.

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Here. Here! And I love the complexity of it's atmosphere which was on display for all of those that saw totality - especially through binoculars. I also wonder what impact that big ejection heading our way over those 8 light minutes or 1 Astronomical Unit - what havoc it will cause. The sun and our atmosphere (Irma and Harvey) recently remind me of our miniscule presence and power on this little blue dot.
 
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It was going to be a perfect night for astro-photography, except I forgot about the almost full moon. Oh well, I'll point north and hopefully get some polar star trails. As it was getting dark, I took a couple practice shots to check focus and was getting odd results. So, I turned back to the moon and got this, a full moon and a camera lens covered in dew. I decided to just go to bed early :)

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The different shots in the time lapse are awesome, but surely you aren't done already for the year!? :cool::D
 
The different shots in the time lapse are awesome, but surely you aren't done already for the year!? :cool::D

I hope not. But winter seems to be looming earlier this year. I might get one more before I pull out the splitboard and get ready to start touring.
 
Once again the full moon ruins astrophotography, this time the moon was making the clouds glow, so I guess it was really the clouds that were the problem. Sunset was great, stars not so much

Best astrophoto of the night. Sagittarius and Scorpius and fading sunset.
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Once again the full moon ruins astrophotography, this time the moon was making the clouds glow, so I guess it was really the clouds that were the problem. Sunset was great, stars not so much

Best astrophoto of the night. Sagittarius and Scorpius and fading sunset.
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Maybe not perfect for seeing the milky way, but the mixed light star shots are my favorite. This is great.
 
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