Copyright © 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.
A few friends and I were planning to meet at Mission San Juan Bautista to shoot star trails. Using TPE it was determined that the No. Star would line up between the hands of the statue “Praising Man” . I could be wrong about the name. Anyway, a friend and I got there early to shoot the Mission chapel, and the town.
While we were wandering around town we noticed the fog bank rolling in and were afraid it would mess up our plans to shoot Star Trails. After dinner we went up to Fremont Peak to take photos of San Juan Valley and the sunset. When we reached the top all we saw was a sea of fog covering the valley below us.
When we got down to the Mission around 8PM there was no sky or a star to be seen over or around the “Praising Man”.
So we stopped our other friends from coming all the way to San Juan Bautista, then regrouped in Gilroy at a coffee shop. At the “Doctor up your coffee” station next to me was a CHP officer so, I engaged him in a conversation about our goal to shoot Star Trails and I asked him if he knew of a high place with some trees or building we could go and shoot and NOT get in trouble with him or his co workers.
He suggested two places. On heading north and the other Dinosaur Point to the south. The North was socked in so we chose to drive out the 20 miles to check out Dinosaur Point.
We hiked out the road a 1/4 mile then doubled back and got off the road and blazed our own trail up a hilly pasture to take our frames.
We left after 2AM. It got colder and windier as the night wore on. I think the ghosting is from the wind hitting my tripod. I used my body to shield it as much as I could.
So something screwy happened to my frames #96-107 they exposed but recorded no data at all. Rien, nada, zilch. All those frames are black. I have checked all the data and they are exactly as all the frames before #96.
One of the guys shooting with me had the most bizarre green lights all around his sky and couldn’t get a true color and he also had black frames.
Maybe Ghost Hunter’s should go check it out.
Stacked in CS5- Resized
28 Frames,Nikkor 17-35mm @ 17mm, f2.8, 181s, ISO 200, Manual mode.
Nikon D300s
Circadianreflections Blog 
Thank you Barry! Unfortunately my plan to shoot star trails here in Glacier National Park has not worked out. There are a lot of clouds here, and dark, dark is really, really late. At 10:20pm it’s just gone twilight…or my favorite Blue period. 🙂
I’ll try again closer to home.
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very nice image Deb
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Thank you so much Ann, Sheila, and Graham! I am planning to do some more star trail shots in the week. Hopefully, I won’t have any movement this time. So, it was me moving my tripod that caused the alignment issue.
Somewhere close to 2AM I was really cold and wanted a blanket, I discovered I’d set up my tripod and started my sequence of shots on part of the blanket! I waited until one exposure finished then as carefully as I could I lifted the leg of the tripod a smidgen to slide the blanket out and that’s when I got the ghosting/ mis-alignment. GRRRR! From now on nothing but my release cable, and backpack will be near my tripod!
Thanks again!
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WOW, fantastic effect Deborah.
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Great shots, Deborah! I loved them! You sure were determined to get them and it paid off!
Congratulations!
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what a fantastic site to see, this is most unsual
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