Tucson City Lights from Saguaro National Park

***Please View Large on Black, the delicately lit foreground and sky really benefit (Press L for large in lightbox mode, or click here) ***

Saguaro National Park's eastern unit provides a starry blue-hour view of Tucson, Arizona's night lights.

Tucson still kicks up a chunk of light pollution, but for a city this size it really is impressive how little there is (especially in the north part of the city (image right). Around the airport and military installations you can see a much more significant light bubble being kicked up (on the center of the horizon). The low light pollution is thanks to the city using lighting codes to try and keep it dark enough for astronomy at two prominent local observatories (Kitt Peak and Whipple Observatory). Sadly, the rapid local population growth has still meant the overhead sky has brightened 15-20% over the past decade, but nonetheless very few modern cities this size have so little impact on the night sky.

Shot Notes: the cactus-filled foreground is based on manually blended exposures mixed with an SNS-HDR version and the sky is non-hdr/a single frame (0 EV). We only had very limited time at Saguaro and I feel I've only scratched the surface of exploring this fascinating area. I can't wait to come back to do some more exploring and photography!

Taken in: United States / Arizona / Tucson (show map)

Taken on: April 1, 2011

Tags:

Saguaro National Park

Saguaro

Park

Arizona

Pima

Night

Star

Stars

Astronomy

Light Pollution

Dark

Skies

Blue Hour

Tucson

City

LIghts

Cactus

Cacti

Silhouette

Sky

Nightscape

Starscape

Nature

National Park

NPS

Nikon

D700

Nikon 17-35

Astrophotography

Wide-field

BRAVO « less

Sets appears in: • 50+ Faves • 20+ Faves & Up more » • Landscapes & Nature • Night Photography • Arizona • 2011 « less

Groups appears in: • Night Images • FlickrCentral more » • U.S. National Parks • The Best: BRAVO (INVITED images only) • Total Photography (No AI or SL) • The World Through My Eyes ... • CITRIT,Best of yours! / Invited shots only/comment 2 / • Nikon D700 • Astrofotografia / Astrophotography « less

Camera: Nikon D700, f/4.0, 6 sec, 17mm, ISO 2500 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D700
Lens:	17-35mm f/2.8
Aperture:	f/4.0
Exposure Time:	6
Focal Length:	17mm
ISO:	2500
Exposure Bias:	-1/3 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Scene Capture Type:	Portrait
Gain Control:	High gain up
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows
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