On Tuesday, we posted a fun little photo-shoot that we did this past weekend just to have some fun. We both love photography so much that we are always looking for something fun and new to test out and shoot. The creative bug has bitten us hard recently! I’ve really become interested in astro-photography and posted some star-trail images on the blog before. Well, what got me interested in astro-photography was the idea of capturing images of the milky way. Now, I of course did not think about the fact that you can only see the milky way at certain times of the year…and I certainly didn’t think about the fact that the Earth is constantly rotating so a long exposure image of the milky way would result in motion blur. Nope, I just wanted to go out and take a picture of the milky way. Well, after lots of research and purchasing an item or two to help out, I finally became prepared to test out some milky way shoots. I’ve been dying to get outside and shoot the milky way. But it’s been cloudy, and it’s been raining, and, when it wasn’t rainy or cloudy, it was a full moon. All of those things present significant challenges to my milky way photo. So, when I took the garbage outside Sunday night pondering the recent Game of Thrones episode and the whole “Red Wedding,” I looked up and gazed upon a beautiful and clear night sky. So I grabbed my gear and rushed out to the observatory to capture the milky way. I was super excited to finally be out shooting the milky way and testing out my new gear. The first image I captured Sunday night I caught a nice shooting star and was on my way to capturing some great images! I did eventually get shut down early by some rising clouds but not before I grabbed a few keepers! First up, the shooting star image. You’ll notice that the shooting star went straight through the milky way!

And here is my milky way shot!

I’ve also spent some time on other nights capturing some star-trails. I fought some light pollution in this next image because there is a security light on an observatory neighbor’s property. You notice in this next image that the stars trail in a circular pattern…why? Because they circle Polaris (the North Star.)
This next image is my favorite star trail to date! I’m pretty sure this will be hanging on the wall in the office very soon! This image catches the stars on something that is called the equatorial plane. You’ll notice that in the top corner the stars circle one way, while in the bottom corner they circle another direction…the different circular patterns are the difference between the northern and southern hemispheres which, is why the stars circle in different patterns. Science is pretty cool, right?!?

We also having been dying to get a chance to play at night while it rains. So, when we heard rain the other night, we grabbed our gear and ran outside to grab these next two images! The rain had basically stopped as fast as it started but we still got a pretty steamy rain image of the two of us!!!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out some of our creative outlet images!