Photograph Star Trails at Silver Lake

Silver Lake is one of the easiest, most accessible hikes in the Wasatch, located at the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah, close to the ski resorts of Brighton and Solitude.

The lake is accessible all year; with a boardwalk or a well-signed path circling the lake through spring to fall. In the winter the lake become a frozen snowshoe and nordic skiing area.

A full hike around the lake takes about 30 minutes, with many vantage points along the boardwalk to make using a tripod even easier.

For Milky Way photos, start by find a good spot on the lake and angle you camera towards the south (to photograph the galactic core). At Silver Lake, due south happens to be looking towards the main area of Brighton Ski Resort.

For the single Milky Way images featured, a Canon 5D Mark III with a Rokinon 24 mm (f/1.4) lens was used, with the following settings:

• ISO1000 to ISO2000
• Shutter speeds/exposure times: 12 to 20 seconds
• Aperture: f/2.0 f/2.0 (stopped down from f/1.4)
• Other settings of note: Evaluative metering, automatic white balance

For the panoramic Milky Way image featured, 16 images were taken rotating the camera at a stationary mark and subsequently stitched together. For each frame of the panoramic image, a Canon 5D Mark III with a Rokinon 24 mm (f/1.4) lens was used with the same following settings:

• ISO1000
• Shutter speeds/exposure times: 20 seconds
• Aperture: f/2.0 (stopped down from f/1.4)
• Other settings of note: Evaluative metering, automatic white balance

For the star trail photos featured, a Canon 5D mark iii with a Rokinon 24 mm lens was used to take 50 individual photographs using the following settings and stacked using Photoshop:

• ISO2000
• Shutter speed: 20 seconds
• Aperture: f/2.0 (stopped down from f/1.4)
• Other settings of note: Evaluative metering, automatic white balance