Serendipity
ser·en·dip·i·ty | \ ˌser-ən-ˈdi-pə-tē \
The faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for
A Night In Grand Marais, Minnesota
I spent several nights last July photographing the night sky near Grand Marais, Minnesota. Why Grand Marais? It’s because of the absence of light pollution.
In Chicago where I live, only bright planets and a handful of very bright stars are visible. The Bortle light pollution scale runs from 1 (no light pollution) to 9 (severe light pollution). Chicago is a Bortle 9, so you need to travel if you want to photograph the Milky Way and the stars.
The skies outside of Grand Marias are in a very dark Bortle 2 zone. And unlike similarly dark sky areas in the desert southwest, comfortable hotel beds, showers, and restaurants are nearby!
A Shot In The Almost Dark
During northern Minnesota summers, twilight can last for almost three hours. On July 8, the sun had set at 9PM. When I arrived at nearby Crescent Lake at 11PM, it was still twilight.
A test photo recorded the sky as too blue and too bright for a good Milky Way photograph. So, I decided to try a star trail photograph.
Star Trails
If you stare at the stars looking north, the stars appear to move in a counterclockwise rotation. This is due to the rotation of the Earth on its axis.
The center of the rotation in the northern sky is Polaris, the North Star. Polaris always remains nearly stationary, while all the other stars and constellations appear to slowly revolve counterclockwise around it.
Capturing sharp, round stars means short exposure times of 30 seconds or less. Longer exposures turn the stars into streaks and then trails. You can use the earth’s rotation to capture distinct appearing star trail photographs.
The Shot
This photograph was sheer serendipity. The exposure of 27 minutes at f2.8 and ISO 400 was a pure guess. And other than an extremely faint luminosity at the horizon, the Northern Lights were invisible to the naked eye. But sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.
Thanks for looking,
Chuck Derus