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"Red Eye"
When we want to preserve our night-vision while we're out under the stars, most of us use red lights. This is what is lighting up my observatory neighbor's place as he walked between the control and telescope rooms of his observatory.
But the title "Red Eye" refers to the airplane trails you can see against the circular star trails around the north celestial pole. This image is a combination of over 350 shots taken over about a 2-hour period around midnight, when the "Red Eye" flights leave Los Angeles (to the left of the photo) for the eastern U.S. coastal cities.
The stars rotated counter-clockwise (rising in the east) to form the trails in this photo. The brighter area of the trails to the upper right of the center is the smeared image of the Milky Way.
- Camera: Nikon D700
- Exposure: >350 x 15 sec. @ ISO 1250
- Lens: Sigma 15mm @ f/2.8