Lindsay Thomson: Star Trails Over Half Dome

Star Trails Over Half Dome

A short trip to Yosemite produced beautiful, sharp star trail images. The skies were so clear that the stars shone like diamonds in the sky. The Milky Way was like a highway of stars over my head.

In this image, as the Earth rotates, the stars seem to rotate around the North Star, Polaris in concentric circles. Part of the Milky Way can be seen to the right of the North Star. Lucky me, a moderate KP5 geomagnetic storm created an Aurora Borealis while I was there. You can see the green in the skies, as my camera had no problems picking up the colors.