STARDUST ROSES

sub specie aeternitatis

“Under the aspect of eternity..”

A child born today in a locale where 250 stars can be seen, will see only 100 stars by the time he is 18, due to light pollution from our towns and suburbs.  The disappearance of the stars in our night skies is affecting the migration of birds and the lives of insects including the bees that pollinate our roses.  Plants and animals, including Human Beings, depend on the daily light and dark cycle to govern life sustaining behaviors.

Sixteen years ago, I went to the Atacama Desert in Chile and discovered the night sky as I had never seen it before. I photographed the Tarantula Nebula, the Orion Nebula, Eta Carina and the brilliance of the Pleiades every night in wonder,  through the telescopes made available to me there.

Years later, after a career as a photographer working in East Africa, India and Asia, I settled in West Marin and started to grow roses.  The coastal climate is perfect for roses.  A friend pointed out the similarity in colors and shapes between my roses, and the nebulae and galaxies in photos from the Hubbell and James Webb telescopes.  So I bought a Vespera Astrophotography telescope, and later a Redcat 71, to see for myself what was blooming in the night sky. Point Reyes enjoys some of the darkest skies in the greater Bay Area.

The Roses and Stars are melded together in my photo studio.  I take hundreds of photos of each Nebula and layer them to create a very “long exposure.”  Then I “stretch out” the image with dedicated Astronomy software.  Each photo represents many hours of work in the studio and months of work in my garden.  But they are mere nanoseconds compared with the light years of distance and time I am photographing in the night sky above us.

Every atom of our DNA is made of elements from an exploding star.  Everything in our world, even our thoughts, are made of stardust, as connected to each other as we are to the dust of distant nebulae, in galaxies far away.

Please support our Dark Skies! 

Turn out unnecessary lights and direct outside lighting toward the Earth.

Visit DarkSkyMarin.com to learn more.