Stars & Stripes & Stars

After an unplanned hiatus, back this morning. San Diego had rain earlier in the week, which does wonders for washing the dust out of the atmosphere. Couple that with a forecast for very clear skies, I went out very early this morning for some star trail experiments. My plan was to photograph this cairn I'd found unexpectedly a few months ago as the foreground and let the universe do the rest. A short - but steep - hike to the summit of the hills nearby my home I was dismayed to find the cairn was gone.

Regroup. Changed the subject to a flag - a little more tattered than my last visit. About 45 minutes into the shooting sequence, I stopped the camera, hence the abrupt stop to the trails. Although sunrise was still nearly an hour off, the skies were brightening too much. Realizing I'm going to need to start much earlier to a more effective star trail...and I still haven't quite gotten my camera recipe down for these shots yet.

But not a total loss...here's what I came away with:

Stars & Stripes & Stars

And as a bonus, I had a great view of the sunrise. Captured a few frames of that as well. Watchy my Google+ page for one of those.