Laser Trails and Star Trails
It was a long walk through the loose boulder fields and curtains of darkness to get to this location. I set up my camera, started it, walked halfway back to JCMT, and realized it was programmed to only shoot one photo. That's what 13,700 ft and a fair amount of sleep deprivation does to you... I hiked back and re-started it.
This is stacked from 80 30-second exposures around moonset. Keck II was running their adaptive optics system, and the 12-watt (!!!) laser was just barely visible to my dark-adapted eyes. The small trail between JCMT and CSO is from my headlamp as I set up a second camera for timelapse later on in the night.
Laser Trails and Star Trails
It was a long walk through the loose boulder fields and curtains of darkness to get to this location. I set up my camera, started it, walked halfway back to JCMT, and realized it was programmed to only shoot one photo. That's what 13,700 ft and a fair amount of sleep deprivation does to you... I hiked back and re-started it.
This is stacked from 80 30-second exposures around moonset. Keck II was running their adaptive optics system, and the 12-watt (!!!) laser was just barely visible to my dark-adapted eyes. The small trail between JCMT and CSO is from my headlamp as I set up a second camera for timelapse later on in the night.