"Star Trails over Sequoia Forest Fire"

Kodak Pro 400 PPF - 6 x 7 cm Pentax medium format camera w/90mm lens - 150 min. exp. - photo � Bill and Sally Fletcher

On July 27, 2000 we were at Walker Pass in the lower Sierra of California to shoot Comet Linear 1. There was a terrible forest fire that had been burning through the Sequoia National Forest for a week already. After we had taken the shots we wanted of the comet, we turned our camera on the glow of the fire further North in the Sierra and opened up the shutter for a 2 plus hour star trails shot.

Star trails are made by the combination of: the spinning of the Earth, the use of a stationary mount or tripod and a long exposure of the film. As the Earth spins, the stars begin to make concentric circles on the photograph. The closer stars are to Polaris, our North pole star, the smaller their circles. The farther away they are, the larger their circles. Since the fire was more West than North of us, Polaris is not in this photo.

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