Double Star Trails
Last night was a night of firsts for me on Mauna Kea. I visited the VLBA antenna for the first time, drove out to the Thirty Meter Telescope site for the first time (that was a rough road!), and I hiked to Lake Waiau for the first time.
Lake Waiau is a small lake near the summit of Mauna Kea. It is extremely sacred to the Hawaiian people. It is at an altitude of 13,200 ft, and Wikipedia reports that it the seventh-highest lake in the U.S.
The winds were low, so the stars reflected well off Lake Waiau, and I took a few images of the reflections. This is a stack of 5 5-minute exposures. The red lights are from my fellow photographers across the lake. This isn't the most exciting star trails photo I've ever taken, but I've never managed to get reflections this clear before, so I decided to post this.
Random trivia: stars have very different colors. Lower-mass main sequence stars have lower temperatures and appear red, whereas heavier stars are hotter and more blue. Our Sun is a mid-size star, and its spectrum peaks at green wavelengths.
Double Star Trails
Last night was a night of firsts for me on Mauna Kea. I visited the VLBA antenna for the first time, drove out to the Thirty Meter Telescope site for the first time (that was a rough road!), and I hiked to Lake Waiau for the first time.
Lake Waiau is a small lake near the summit of Mauna Kea. It is extremely sacred to the Hawaiian people. It is at an altitude of 13,200 ft, and Wikipedia reports that it the seventh-highest lake in the U.S.
The winds were low, so the stars reflected well off Lake Waiau, and I took a few images of the reflections. This is a stack of 5 5-minute exposures. The red lights are from my fellow photographers across the lake. This isn't the most exciting star trails photo I've ever taken, but I've never managed to get reflections this clear before, so I decided to post this.
Random trivia: stars have very different colors. Lower-mass main sequence stars have lower temperatures and appear red, whereas heavier stars are hotter and more blue. Our Sun is a mid-size star, and its spectrum peaks at green wavelengths.