| New US Stamp: Star Trails at Mt Rainier (2016-4-20) ⬅︎ |
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One night last summer after visitors left the evening's Night Skies program at Paradise, Mt Rainier, Matt Dieterich,
a young intern with the program, noticed the purple light of an aurora borealis glowing above Mt Rainier.
Not one to pass up such a photographic opportunity, Matt quickly raced over to Reflection Lake, a few miles away,
and set up his camera with 24-millimeter wide-angle lens on a stable tripod. Over the next two hours, he
took 200 8-second images and then merged them into a single photo to let
the trails
combine into curving arcs of light. The pole star, Polaris, is just above the top of this image.
Congratulations to Matt for having his photograph selected by the US Postal Service!
Nightscape photography has become very popular in recent years due to improvements in low-light digital camera
technology but also due to a growing awareness that the earth at night has a special aesthetic appeal all its own.
At Starry Hill, we are committed to helping people connect with the night sky and also with protecting it for future
generations. Come join us this summer at Paradise, Mt Rainier, as part of the NPS Night Skies program. You'll be
able to view treasures of the night sky through telescopes and also be a part of nightscape photography and
astrophotography. |
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