Moonlight Mojave: The desert under starry skies

MOONLIGHT MOJAVE from Sunchaser Pictures on Vimeo.

Gavin Heffernan and Harun Mehmedinovic created an awe-inspiring video of stars and star trails in the desert in the U.S. Southwest. For the purpose of reaching the skyviewing-loving audience, they shot the video for their SKYGLOW project. It’s an ongoing quest to explore the effects and dangers of urban light pollution in contrast with some of the most incredible dark sky areas in North America. With this in mind, they created their work in collaboration with the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA). The IDA is a non-profit fighting for the preservation of night skies around the globe. Likewise, don’t miss International Dark Sky Week, coming up April 22-30.

Moonlight Mojave

In short, the stunning video consists of 20-second exposures against the clear desert skies. As an illustration, Gavin described their video project in an email to EarthSky:

Shot around various locations in the Mojave desert, we experimented with using a nearly full moon to create a surreal psychedelic “sunlight” effect over some night sky stars and star trail panoramas. Usually we try to avoid the moon because it washes out the stars, but it actually created a unique look when photographed at 20 second exposures against the clear desert skies.

In addition, you can see more of Gavin and Harun’s amazing photographs and videos at their website, SKYGLOW.

Bottom line: Enjoy the timelapse video Moonlight Mojave that captures the beauty of the night sky and the surreal moonlit scenery and panoramas of the Mojave Desert.

Via Sunchaser Pictures

Read more:

See Gavin and Harun’s 2019 video featuring ancient petroglyphs

Enjoy their 2017 video – POLI’AHU – and the skies above Mauna Kea

Gavin and Harun’s first video, from 2015, lets you imagine stars and star trails over the light-polluted city of Los Angeles