Solstice Sun & Startrails. 21st June 2010

I've been thinking about trying a shot like this for a while.
It's a series of images taken at sunset on the solstice with a
12mm wide angle lens pointed North.
The sun's were taken in 5 min intervals with a baaddar homemade
solar filter over the lens then stacked in Photoshop.
The startrail shots were 5min exposures one after another
(the gaps are because of clouds... grr!)
taken between 12:30 and 2:30 (the Sun dipped to it's lowest altitude below the horizon at 1:30)
ISO and f stop settins were kept the same to show the change in
light levels while also trying to pick up the brighter stars
(5 min exposure North at this time of year is narly shooting in daylight!)

The then multiple startrail shots & suns were stacked in Startrails.exe (a handy free startrails prog on the net)

The foreground is averaged (so as to rid the sky of the passing clouds) and the startrails are left.
The overall effect shows the light from the sun etching across the horizon over time from after sunset to before sunrise.
(I made a small video also which shows this very clearly)

Unfortunatly clouds got the better of me and no sunrise could be recorded but I think it still gives a nice sense of the movement and lighting on this so called 'night'

Next year: Fish Eye Lens and Extra strong coffee!

www.frankryanjr.com/Solstice_Sunset_Startrails_Small.jpg

That's a really fine image, Frank - well worth the effort.
Definetly one for sharing.

Cheers
Mark

Very nice work Frank.
All you need to do now is try again in the next few nights, except this time stay up till dawn and capture the sunrise!

It would have been a unique image Frank had the weather co-operated.
Still nice all the same, the weather is supposed to be good towards the end of the week.,

Yeah, I may try again.
I'll be up at the tip of the North in a week for a week's hollidays.
It's a long nights shooting let me tell you!
Your talking 8 hours to get it complete.

Well done with this image.
It looks great.