Astrophotography

Not my best shot of the night sky by any means, but it was pretty fun capturing one of the most recognizable set of stars in the sky with a decent foreground composition.

This was from Door County last year, and while not as impressive as seeing the stars out in the Pacific Ocean over Maui, it was still a lot better than what we normally see living 10 minutes from Chicago. It was from September of last year, the only real chance I’ve gotten to shoot the night sky in Door County so far.

Of our other trips to date, it was ridiculously cold last December to be out, and for our April trip, there just wasn’t really a good spot where we were at. Plus, it was the Stanley Cup playoffs and the Hawks were beating up on Calgary, so I couldn’t miss that.

Not sure about going out to shoot this next trip, but we’ll see.

If you want to see more of these, check out the two photosets on Flickr below, and a little bit more of how this all got started.

• Stars Over Door County photoset on Flickr
• Stars Over Maui photoset on Flickr

My week at the Maui Photo Festival was more than amazing. More on that soon, as I still have a good number of photos to post online.

As luck would have it, the week also happened to fall during a new moon and the skies were clear almost every night. On our last night there, I took the chance to shoot those amazing skies with one of the many new friends I made on the trip.

Taking advantage of a great spot near the Hyatt, I decided to setup a shot of me sitting at the edge of the lawn looking up at the Milky Way. I thought it came out nice.

Most photographers and practically all book authors will talk about the best, or only, time to shoot is during the golden hours. Those are the first and last hours of sunlight during the day, which of course correspond to sunrise and sunset.

Well, ever since I first shot the Milky Way over Maui, I have grown rather fond of shooting long exposures at night. Many of them initially have been of the heavens, such as this one of Venus, but I’ve recently started to look for things more down to Earth to shoot as well. Back here on Maui for a week, there’s been great night skies and no shortage of things around me to shoot after dark. Not to mention the help of some of the new gear I picked up for this trip, too.

Here’s a quick sampling, with more being uploaded soon.

And of course, the primary reason I love shooting at night in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

See more at my Stars Over Maui photoset on Flickr, and if you happen to have starry photos from Hawaii to share, I invite you to join us at the Stars Over Hawaii group on Flickr as well.

Thanks.

Photo: A pre-dawn sky filled with stars as seen from 10,000 feet above sea level atop the Haleakala Summit.

A view of Venus in the West Maui sky as it descends into the ocean.