The Chalice

A 40' tall Moenave sandstone monolith stands alone in this harsh windswept landscape where it has slowly eroded into a natural beauty.

Why? Because I could.
And I've rarely had such a compelling subject situated so nicely in relation with Polaris.

Compiled using Steven Christensen's brilliant Advanced Stacker Plus PS actions.

Canon 5DII w/Rokinon 14mm f2.8 lens
ISO 1000
80 images @ 2 min. each stacked.
Foreground pre-dawn 1 sec. @ f5.6

Note: Larger is better. Gaps in star trails are not present in full res. version.

John, that is sweet! This is really well done. My only very minor nits are that it seems like it needs to be rotated slightly to the left and that there is a bit of a halo on the bottom left of the formation. Fix these and you have one incredible shot to add to your already impressive collection.

I generally prefer star fields over star trails, but this composition with the PS action works for me. Superb!

OK Bub, this is SERIOUSLY cool. What a creative idea for shooting the swirl! I've been doing more and more night images, I'll need to check out those actions. Anyway, great job. If you straighten the horizon, does, it force you to hack too much of the sky?

Very cool shot, John. I like the center placement of the formation, it works well centered leading up to the circular star trails. Make the noted horizon adjustment and hit print.

All I can say is WOW! The pre dawn shot illumination is perfect as is the composition. Better make space on one of your walls to hang this one.

I kike the sound of that star stacking technique. Less noise and potential camera shake has to be a benefit of stacked 2 min exposures vs one long exposure. But 80 images OMG!. Do you really need 80 or would 40 do?

Awesome idea John, and beautiful subject matter. Really looks like a peaceful setting. Not really a place where you bump elbows with other photographers right?

Hot pixel far bottom right in grass.

Wow! This is outstanding, John. I almost got dizzy looking at it. :-) I do agree with Erik's comments but this is certainly an excellent addition to your collection.

Nice.
Star swirls all over the internet and you manage to produce the best example I can remember. It’s all good; dead center over the monolith, foreground exposure, touch of color in the clouds and strong landscape and sky processing.

Yah, maybe the topography and clouds happen to give the illusion of a tilt, but I’m going with the straight monolith as my plumb.

As others have said, this is really a WoW image. I generally agree with Bill in preferring stars over trails, but this is definitely the exception. Nicely done!!

Beautiful John

Super double fine, John!!

John, this is pretty cool. I like the comet trails in conjunction with the star trails. I could see a 2 degree rotation as the cracks in the Moenave would still keep a vertical sense to the pinnacle. And brightening just the land, not sky, 1%.

Well, well done! Sets itself apart from any other star trails pic.

Wow, what a fantastic comp! How long did it take your computer to process 80 shots? Did you do it in segments or all at once?

Thanks for all of the kind words and great suggestions!

Don,
I processed the images in ACR and then exported them in 8 bit files rather than the usual 16 bit. This made a tremendous difference in stacking time, I'm sure. The Advanced Stacker actions did the rest of the work (all images at once) and this ol' computer hardly broke a sweat.

Really nice! Thanks for sharing the tip on Photoshop actions.

Beautifully imagined and processed John! Wonderful subject and the exposure level of the foreground is perfect in my book. The effect created by stacking software is really nice as well.