Small Town; Big Sky Photo

Photographer’s Note

The lights at the bottom are the little town of Newton, Utah, founded by Mormon pioneers in the 1860s (population 696).

If you look carefully in the sky, you can see the Big Dipper, often called Ursa Major or the Large Bear. It looks more like a dipper than a bear, in my opinion. If you can find the cup, you can connect the dots at the end that then point to Polaris, or the North Star, in the upper right corner of the photo.

Ursa Minor, or the Little Dipper, is dancing around upside down up there, Polaris at the end of it's handle (or tail).

You can use the pointers of the Big Dipper as a star clock to tell the time, too! If you lived in the middle ages, you might have carried a little wheel called a "nocturnal" to do this. But if you can do elementary school math, you can do it without a nocturnal.

1. First, face north and imagine a 24 hour clock face transplanted to the sky. Find the Big Dipper and draw an imaginary hour hand from Polaris to the Dipper's pointer stars. Figure out what time this reads on our celestial clock. In this case, it looks like it's about 14:00 o'clock (but we're not finished yet!).

2. Subtract 2 hours for each month from March 8th. (October: so 5 hours, giving us a total of 9).

3. To get really detailed, subtract 30 minutes for each week, and , if you want to be more accurate, subtract 4 minutes per remaining day. Oh, and don't forget to ADD one hour for Daylight Savings Time (if necessary). Your answer will be local real time, accurate to within 30 minutes!

In this case, 9 pm is close enough. I believe it was about 9:20 or so when I captured this.

During slave times here in the U.S., the Big Dipper formed what African American slaves called the "drinking gourd." Using the Drinking Gourd as a guide, they could find Polaris and head north to possible safety and freedom.

In the U.K., the Big Dipper is called the "Plough," I believe.

What is called in other countries?

PP: As with almost all of my night shots, this was shot at ISO 100 to avoid noise. I still got it, and to fix it, I selected the stars and put them on their own layer. I then selected the hills and lake, and put them on their own layer. The sky (sans stars) was also on its own layer. With the stars gone, I could freely blur and add gradients so the sky looked clean. The stars were brighted slightly using Levels and sliding only the middle slider to the left. The hills and water also took some work, mostly with cleaning up using the Smudge tool.

Thanks for putting up with yet another shot with lots of negative space!

AdrianW, mitternacht, emercamaya, tgdusty, polongi, dom_inik_m, Michael_Gan, ChrisJ, PixelTerror, Midnight_sun, nwoehnl, Jeppe, cmartinez, robiuk, Mrg, rabani, Didi, snowcrazzi, archanabhimasen, anney has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

lucinka (9902) 2004-12-13 17:33

Wow, a thumbnail looked very dark and nothing special , but looking at actual picture is a real surprise. You have created dream photo with lovely deep blue colors and 1.000 stars :) I really like you idea to capture evening/night atmosphere with silhuettes and stars. Very well done. L.

[2]

mitternacht (1836) 2004-12-13 17:45

Some good post-processing I must say. Looks like a christmas card or something. You really managed to get the stars sparkling, only disturbing thing is the chromatic abberation. The colors gradient across the sky is really nice and so is the color of the lake with its dark reflections and the little town. Ver nice shot. Thanks for the informative note, btw.

[2]

maciekda (19587) 2004-12-13 17:46

beautiful picture David, great light and colors, incredible stars. what a mood... beautiful

tgdusty (385) 2004-12-13 18:15

Again David, from a negative space you made not only a positive photograph but a work of art. Great info on the post process.
Tony B

dom_inik_m (1707) 2004-12-13 19:58

From the dark blue and black come out the light(s)!
Thanks a million for this poetic moment out of time, and sensibility of space beyond our common boundaries. From now on, if the weather is not overcast, I'll remember to look at the stars with different eyes... ;-)

Michael_Gan (2772) 2004-12-14 1:12

Incredible picture, David. Thanks also for explaining your postprocessing work, very helpful!
By the way, in the Netherlands the official name is "Grote Beer" (i.e. Ursa Major), but it is also called the "Steelpannetje", which is a kitchen pan/pot with a handle...

ChrisJ (70203) 2004-12-14 4:46

Hi David

Superb capture of the night sky. No light pollution visible either. Newton is no Las Vegas. Well done.

PixelTerror (86088) 2004-12-14 5:33

Hi David, sky lights opposed to city lights, nice composition adding the moutain silhouettes to separate the lights and the deep intense blue tonal ranges not to be too dark. Very attractive photo and excellent note.

[2]

dovi (1068) 2004-12-14 7:37

Great night shot, with beautiful blue color tones and perfect clear stars shining!

nwoehnl (120) 2004-12-14 14:25

Beautiful mood emanated by this one, David. A very subtle play of colors and light, with an effective use of the low horizon and the Newton lights versus the wonderful starry sky. The negative space thing is becoming one of your trademarks and you're really applying it wisely in your compositions.

Rockyboy (20580) 2004-12-14 16:13

The PP to reduce the noise is very well done, David and I like very much this gradient of blue. I see the north with Polaris star and the "Grande Ourse" in French. Nice mountains below too. I like very much this shot!

Jeppe (18623) 2004-12-14 18:14

Very special and different shot - I have tried something like this but without very much luck - Also thanks for the note about the Big Dipper - I beleive it mention in a song as well - now I know whats its all about - thanks for sharing this work - and yes - I can see you had to use a "smooth tool" - very well done - thanks David.

cloverstar (0) 2004-12-15 14:09

You make us work hard today David.
Fantastic photo, so clear and beautiful. The post processing work you did is very good. I bet it took a long time selecting the individual stars, but it was well worth it.
I see a red star ... no I don't, that must be Rudolph.

robiuk (10763) 2004-12-15 18:28

Bravo David,
both for your photo and the note!
It's late in the evening over here and if I turn off the lights in my room and keep looking at your capture, suddenly I'm being transported outdoors and... hard to explain - but it becomes real!

avigur_11 (21273) 2004-12-15 23:06

Oh, I love this shot, David. This wonderful great deep blue skies are amazing. Postprocessing is very good - you got a very clean photo in the end. Excellent work, beautiful results.

maphoto (8076) 2004-12-17 8:29

Very nice work David, th reesult is fantastic, very impressive sky and good choice of framing with the low horizon of the city and moutains, very well done.

Mrg (823) 2004-12-17 18:23

I love this one David. The thin blue sky behind the mountains is fantastic. Great composition

manny (21378) 2004-12-18 10:51

there is always drama in all of your picture... comes from your being a dram teacher, I guess,

Great intense color and unique compo. I like it very much.

rabani (9421) 2004-12-23 20:38

Now, this would be my first time, to see a graphical impression of a night scene over a small town, along with its distant mountain range. All black and blue with the haloing along the mountain range. And as a trekking/backpacking person, the note on the constellation is just useful.
Thank you David and Merry Christmas.

Didi (36084) 2005-01-01 7:26

J'apprécie de voir la constellation du Grand Chariot Ursa Major avec ce dégradé de ciel noir et bleu foncé. La composition stellaire est très bien travaillée.

I appreciate to see the constellation of Ursa Major with this grad of black and blue sky dark. The stellar composition is very well worked.

archanabhimasen (270) 2005-04-26 23:10

Awesome shot with very nice and interesting details which really enhances the shot. Thanks for sharing with TE!

jb06 (150) 2006-02-05 13:51

Wow!! Great photo David! I like this one better than the winter starry night sky photo. While the other photo is still amazing, this photo has so much more detail!
Outstanding photo overall!

chander (228) 2006-10-18 3:20

thanks for sharing this image. i have added it to my theme "starry night" capturing these tiny dots on film/ccd has been a challange and requires patience which precisley astronomy/astrophotography teach us :-)

anney (143) 2006-11-22 21:51

Beautiful photo! I really love how the sky fades from inky blue to medium blue against the mountains - great work with negative space! And nice PP work too!