Stars Above the Moon

Cathedral Valley is sacred, and not simply due to its name, but for the pure serenity one feels. The peace I felt here was extraordinary. The foreground captures the Temple of the Moon, and in the background lies the Temple of the Sun.

I am always at awe when it comes to spending time in nature. This evening and night was no exception. An entire trip was setup for this very shot, to capture Polaris (or better known as the North Star) high above the Temples. And I knew I only had one chance due to the technique involved to capture varied lighting over several hours. This composed shot consists of exposures over sunset, moonset, and dark night, all under partly to mostly cloudy skies, a total of 200 minutes of photography. Several intruders came by, including cars and a myriad of airplanes. Each have been carefully removed (thank you Photoshop).... about 12 hours of processing in the making. I was pleased with the result.

File info: 1305-4-5223 [3:2]

Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, USA

Author: Chad Dutson

Photo size: 0.7 Mpixels (2 MB uncompressed) - 1024x683 pixels (3.4x2.3 in / 8.7x5.8 cm at 300 ppi)

Photo keywords: american southwest, american west, astronomy, capitol reef, cathedral valley, chad dutson, clouds, crnp, desert, desert southwest, desertscape, evening, exposure, glow, landscape, light, moonset, national park, nature, night, nightscape, north star, polaris, reflection, sky, southwest, space, star, stars, stars above the moon, starscape, sunset, temple of the moon, temple of the sun, trails, utah, wild, wilderness

Published in: Desert, Dunes, Arches, 2013 Releases, Sky, Night, Astronomy