One of my favorite places in Arches National Park is Double Arch.  And unlike some of the other arches, this area you can hike and climb all over the place while the soaring arches loom above.  Have you been here?

I have also wanted to do a star trail shots with most of the popular arch features found in the park.  I was finally able to get all the data together to complete the Double Arch project using my star trail capture and process technique I’ve developed over time.  One reason it can take so long to do my star trail photographs is the extraordinary time it takes to do all the capture,  process and rendering.  It is not uncommon for it to take me several months with scheduled effort.  Most star trail images today just use a spin filter to try and smooth out the star’s trail - but as you can see, it is never a perfect circle.  So to get each star path discreetly processed can keep your computer rendering the complex commands for large parts of the day.

“Gateway to the Stars” is captured from over 600 twenty five second long exposures, five different programs and over a 3 months to plan/develop as well as a couple weeks alone to process and refine the resulting photograph with test prints. The colorful vibrant circles and arcs come from the stars subtle intrinsic colors, thin cloud movements and even air quality. Too many clouds, however, can ruin the entire night.