Polaris above Prescott Valley, AZ

When I first started reading up on night photography years ago I remember looking at star trail images with wonder: simply by leaving the lens open for a long time one could capture the movement of the stars across the sky.  Even more wondrous were images that included Polaris, the north star, which aligns with the planet’s rotational axis and thus does not move during the night (while all the other stars appear to spin around it).  I promptly put capturing a long-exposure star-trail image with Polaris on my bucket list.

And last week while visiting Prescott, AZ, I finally got one I’m happy with:

A long-exposure night image with moonlit illuminated hills and stars rotating around Polaris.
A long-exposure image of the moonlit hills above Prescott Valley, Arizona.

This is a single-frame capture based on a roughly 30 minute exposure; the hills in the foreground are illuminated by moonlight.

Take a look in my Prescott, AZ gallery for a few more images from my recent trip there (though this is the only star trail image I’m sharing from the trip).

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