A lack of light pollution due to Irene-induced power outages made for some spectacular night skies.
The photo above was created through a process called “stacking.” Several hundred long exposure frames were merged together using specialized software to create the star streaks. In digital cameras this method is preferable to leaving the camera shutter open for a long duration as “noise” tends to build up in the image. The frames can also be dropped into video editing software to create a spectacular video of the Earth’s movement. If you watch the video in HD on YouTube’s site you’ll be able to see Jupiter’s moons in orbit around the giant planet in the last scene:

The photos were taken with “off the shelf” equipment: a Nikon D7000 with a 35mm lens. Recent SLR digital cameras have exceptional low-light performance that deliver spectacular images when paired with the right set of lenses.
Later this month CTTechJunkie will travel to Ashford to meet amateur astronomers at the annual Astronomical Society of New Haven’s Star Party where we hope to capture more images of the night sky and learn more about best practices from the experts..