TonyRogersPhotos.com - Star Trails and Northern Lights

Star Trails and Northern Lights - North of Duluth, Minnesota
March 21, 2006

These were taken on the Old Vermilion Trail about 15 miles north of Duluth, MN. It took one hour of driving and two hours of photography to capture these three long exposures.

This image is nearly centered on Polaris, the "North Star," just left of center between the tops of both trees. This exposure was 10 minutes with a 20mm lens at f/4.5 and ISO 100 with a Canon 300D Digital Rebel camera. The top of the tree on the left is lit from the sky glow of Duluth city lights 15 miles away!

The "Belt" of the constellation Orion is seen bright at the lower left of this exposure between the two large spruce pines. The left side of the image is artificially lit from the Duluth city lights, 15 miles away to the southwest. The purple star-track at middle right on the image is the constellation Pleiades, the "Seven Sisters." This exposure was 20 minutes with a 50mm lens at f/4.5 and ISO 100 with a Canon 300D Digital Rebel camera.

A glimmer of orange light from Aurora Borealis crept into the last 5 minutes of this 30 minute exposure. This is centered just below Polaris (The North Star) to magnify the turn-of-the-Earth effect. This exposure was 30 minutes with a 20mm lens at f/4.0 and ISO 100 with a Canon 300D Digital Rebel camera.