Time-lapse of the Milky Way Rising in the Mojave Desert

In late April I was out camping in the desert, and I set an alarm to get up in the early morning hours to catch the Milky Way rise.  Around 1 am the first bits of it were just rising over the eastern horizon, so I set up two cameras, to catch both static and panning views of it.

The camera on a stationary tripod captured images that I could also process to create star trails images:

See the link to my star trails tutorial below

 Here's the time-lapse video captured on a second camera, using a sky-tracking, panning mount:


Digital Rights Management by Nimia

 Here's the time-lapse video captured on the stationary camera:


Digital Rights Management by Nimia

I set another alarm to wake up near sunrise to stop the time-lapses, and with one of the cameras I captured multiple shots to stitch together a panorama of the Milky Way, now forming a high arc in the sky.

Milky Way Over Joshua Trees, Panorama

It all turned out really well.  I should sleep at work more often!

Here's some introductory information on night photography techniques, in case you want to try yourself:

How to Capture Milky Way Images

http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/2011/05/25/producing-milky-way-images/

Create Star Trails Images

http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/2011/05/25/creating-star-trail-images/

I can show you more advanced techniques as well as these in more detail during night photography workshops in the "ghost town" of Bodie. We have five workshops scheduled in 2015, with dates available from May through October.  Several of the workshops also offer special escorted access into building interiors, which are not generally open to the public:
http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/bodie-night-photography-workshops/


P.S. - Thanks in advance for lies, shares, +1s, comments, or any other honors that you choose to bestow on my blog posts!  With my book done, I'm trying to get a lot more active on updates to my blog, so you should see a lot more activity and updates here in the coming weeks and months.  I also have a "new"(er) blog, which I use to consolidate social media posts to: www.JeffSullivanPhotography.com.

Stereographic Projection of 360 Degree Panoramas

My World in Autumn, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

If you want to try something completely different and have a lot of time on your hands, put on your widest lens and shoot a panorama which covers everything around you (including straight up and down). Run that through the free Hugin panorama software, and viola!

I have to warn you that it's a steep learning curve: it took me roughly 24 hours to produce this result (partially due to a nearly 1GB TIFF file initial result). Until I've done a few more the best option is to refer you to the many Flickr groups which have tutorials posted in the discussions: www.flickr.com/search/groups/?q=Hugin

For example, the group Create Your Own Planets www.flickr.com/groups/createyourownplanets/ offers tips on the shooting end. First you put on your widest lens, set one white balance, exposure and manually set focus (so the information in overlapping shots will be easier for the program to identify and blend). Then with the camera in portrait/vertical (sideways) orientation you rotate around and take overlapping photos in a circle (each one overlapping the previous one roughly 1/4 frame). You need to cover everything, so at 10mm you'll need to take at least 2 rows in a circle, one almost catching your feet and one almost reaching the sky straight up. Then you take one shot straight up, and one straight down. Tou do all of this while trying to have the camera always shoot from the same point (rotating around a point roughly halfway down the lens, which can be done best with a panoramic tripod head). Here's a discussion with more detail on the shooting:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/createyourownplanets/discuss/72157606038572766/ including a link to tutorials on this site: www.panoguide.com/howto/

Here's a discussion in that same group with 2 links to tutorials on the whole process, including software: www.flickr.com/groups/createyourownplanets/discuss/72157594556380967
Now I need to go read the tutorials. : )

Good luck!

P.S. - For extra credit, once you get the basic process down, you can try integrating the result into a video, like the opening sequence here, and the timelapse at 4:00! www.vimeo.com/12279966