Star trails over Mauna Loa, Hawai'i

[FraserClarke]

Star trails to the south over Mauna Loa, taken from Mauna Kea. Unfortunately the little cinder cone gets in the way of the summit of Mauna Loa -- but I wasn't going to stand outside in the cold for 3 hours to get a better view (here at 9000ft, even Hawai'i is baltic at night!).

Mauna Loa doesn't look an impressive mountain in this image. It's actually over 13000ft high, and to give an idea of scale, the car lights you can see coming down Mauna Loa took about 30 minutes to cover that distance. If you look on the full image, you can see the (not so) old lava flows.

~240 x 30s images with a Nikon D80 + ~50mm lens. Stacked together in GIMP with "Lighten Only" layer combination. Occasional masks applied to get rid of scattered light from cars. Little bit of colour balancing/thresholding, but not much processing at all.

[barkis]

Nice Star trails. The long arcs certainly are indicative of your way down south latitude. About N20 degrees aren't you?

Thanks for posting this. Can you get a Northern Trail Too?

Ron.

[FraserClarke]

Yes, 19d50' North.

Northern trail is harder -- Mauna Kea is in the way! It's possible from the summit -- but even more issues with freezing ones bits off!

[Digz]

Great star trail shot with nice foreground interest.

Its been a couple of years since Ive tried this, must give it ago soon.

[Digz]

Great star trail shot with nice foreground interest.

Its been a couple of years since Ive tried this, must give it ago soon.