Kelly Davenport

This star trail is a composite of 75 individual images I shot at Deam Lake State Recreation area in Borden, Indiana. I used a Nikon D7500 with a Rokinon 14mm lens and an intervalometer. I started off shooting with an ISO of 1600 for 15 seconds with an aperture of 2.8. As the sky got darker, I increased my ISO to 2000. The light pollution on the bottom right is the Louisville, Kentucky, metro area, including the towns of New Albany, Jeffersonville and Clarksville, Indiana. One of the reasons this image is among my favorites of 2019, my monochrome version of this image won 3rd place at this year’s Kentucky State Fair. I enjoyed going to the fair and overhearing people talk about my image and trying to figure out how I created it. I have to give a special shoutout to Brad Goldpaint for teaching me how to create this. Thanks Brad!

Chris Marler

This is a composite shot taken in November at Skogafoss Falls in Iceland.  It’s my favorite of 2019 because I’ve been trying to capture the northern lights for years, and I was finally able to do that on this trip.  I used the technique Brad taught us by combining a long exposure foreground shot with a 20 second sky shot.

David Wilson

This is a picture take on a tour in Armenia to the Garni Temple at night.  The Garni temple was built in the first or second century and was destroyed by an earthquake in 1679.  It was reconstructed in 1969-1975 by the Russians.  Garni is the only remaining pagan temple in Armenia.  On the tour we had 15 minutes to explore.  In those 15 minutes, I pulled up starwalk 2, figured out where the milky way was and found it to be standing nearly vertical.

Christine Whitten

This is a composite panorama shot at Yosemite national Park October 2019 at about 11 pm. The rest of the photography group I was with had tired after a long day shooting fall colors. Everyone was anxious to leave as dawn and the next photo shoot would come all too soon. As they were packing the cars, I fired off a series of 6 shots as quick as I could, shooting blindly overhead in the dark and not having enough time to bracket for a separate foreground exposure. Although grainy, I am very pleased with the results. It’s also fun that I caught the Andromeda Galaxy.

Diane Ramthun

Last August, we were sailing in Northern Lake Superior in a Canadian wilderness marine sanctuary. We anchored at Battle Island with the intention of photographing the Milky Way over the lighthouse. Battle Island is known for its historic lighthouse built in 1877 atop a rocky cliff over the Lake. It”s also know for a shipwreck on August 10, 1899 when a 181 foot steamer ship ran aground below the lighthouse in a sudden fog.

Carol Gaupp

This doesn’t match the nighttime photography theme, but is the shot of the year for me.  While canoeing in the BWCA in Northern Minnesota this past September, we came across this adult loon attempting to swallow an enormous smallmouth bass.  The battle between the loon and fish took about four minutes before it was swallowed whole.  It needed to be lined up yet right (head first).  I like this shot because of the details, the water pouring out of the mouth of the doomed fish, etc.  Ended up being published in the Star Tribune newspaper.