Star Trails In Ryan Campground, Joshua Tree

Ryan Campground is accessible via the West Entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. These Joshua Trees are close to the adobe ruin about 1/4 mile west of the campground.

This image is a stack of 320 photographs, each 58 seconds long, taken at 1-second intervals by using a Nikon MC-36 intervalometer programmed to capture the photos. I set up my gear for this shoot shortly before midnight. I connected the camera to a Nikon EH-6A AC adapter and plugged the AC adapter into the inverter on a 5-In-One PowerPack from Chicago Electric. I turned everything on and let it run for the 5 1/2 hours necessary to capture the images. I stacked them with startrails.exe and processed the color using Nik HDR Efex Pro and Nik Color Efex Pro's Pro Contrast.

Star trails behind three Joshua Trees with the camera facing south during a new moon.