Star trails over the Australian Outback

July 9th, 2012

Australian photographer Lincoln Harrison shot these awesome star trail photos over the Australian Outback. The photos are HDR composites to properly expose the foregrounds. The star trails appear circular because as our planet rotates around its axis every 24 hours, the visible stars in the sky rotate around the polar axis. Read more about how to shoot star trail photos.

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Posted by Shelby White on 07/9/12 in Photography

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Steve says:

07/09/2012 at 2:44 AM

Stunning photographs. Can you explain what they depict ?
Why do the stars appear in a circular path?
Beautiful!
Shelby White says:

07/09/2012 at 8:54 AM

Hey Steve, I’ve updated the post with a link about shooting star photos.

To answer your question of why the stars are in a circular path, it’s because of the rotation of earth around its polar axis. The stars directly North and South of the axis will appear stationary. However, it’s really not the stars that are moving, it’s just Earth rotating.
Sue says:

07/10/2012 at 1:03 PM

Steve, it’s a long time exposure as well, set on the camera. Shelby what does HDR mean? I’m barely using digital, still using some film… I’m really behind in technology
Shelby White says:

07/10/2012 at 1:12 PM

@Sue, HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, which is essentially the dynamic range between the lightest and darkest areas of an image.

Here is more on the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging
lee jin su says:

01/03/2014 at 4:39 AM

Oh~~~ my G…..O….D….. Great Work…wow…Beautiful Star…
Vince Barton says:

02/20/2019 at 1:32 PM

I found the outback photo on google and I would really like to make it the cover art for my new music album. Is this permissible?
Kishan B Patel says:

05/07/2020 at 4:56 AM

Amazing Shoot…………..