Hawthicket Star Trails

It's not very often that you can go take pictures in the summer in Arkansas and find that it's not horribly hot, muggy and humid outside. But we had a nice string of days where the high temperatures broke and it was actually quite pleasant outside. To take advantage of the break, I headed out to try to take star trail pictures at the abandoned old Hawthicket Church, near Mt. Vernon.

I set the camera up by the church, and the first few stars began to appear right after sunset. I set the camera to take pictures for about two hours, taking a total of about 220 shots. The low humidity meant that the stars were really bright in the sky that night.



The other streaks in the picture are courtesy of several C-130 jets that flew by overhead. The Little Rock Air Force base is nearby and the church must sit beneath one of the flight paths. There are also a few faint streaks here made by meteors, the most notable one being in the top middle right of the shot, coming out from a tree (the one below that is a plane).

After the star trails shots were finished, I moved the camera over to get a different angle of the church under the blanket of stars.



It was late and a work night, so I needed to get back home soon. But not before getting one last shot from the other side of the church, which also had a view of the Milky Way. The glow in the sky is thanks to the city lights in Little Rock.