What Color is the Universe?

What is the color of a night sky? If you said "black" you'd be wrong! Black is the lack of light —it's the space between the stars, planets, astroids, and the dust.

Back in 2002, scientist charted the perceptible colors in our universe, and they found on average our universe is somewhat of a light brown brown color. They call it "Cosmic Latte" (play the above video).

Every star has a different color. Most people think all the stars in the night sky are just white. Wrong again! One thing that amazed me when I first began to photograph the night sky was how every star had its own distinct color. You can clearly see that when you do long star trail exposures, like this 7+ hour exposure (via stacking) by the Australian photographer, Lincoln Harrison:

"650 x 40 Seconds" by Lincoln Harrison

Royce's 2014 Workshop, Lecture & Video Conference Schedule: NightScapeEvents.com
Featured Post: Shooting Stars eBook Review — How to Photograph the Stars and the Moon

Australian Night Skies by Lincoln Harrison

The Pinnacles, Phillip Island VIC ~ © Lincoln Harrison - "The best location I've ever seen."

Some purist have criticize Lincoln Harrison for being "too colorful", but he continues to do things his way. Making his starry night Australian landscapes look "accurate" is not as important to Lincoln as it is to make it "…look as good as it can." The popularity of his images would indicate that most agree with Lincoln's point of view.

Lincoln, 37, is a self-taught photographer from Bendigo, Australia. Prior to photography, he spent most of my spare time racing off-road motorcycles. He's only been doing photography for the past two and a half years, when he bought his first DSLR to take shots of some ebay items. Somewhere along the way Lincoln got hooked on landscape and night photography, star trails in particular. "I was working nightshift when I got my first camera, so on my days off there wouldn't be much daylight left by the time I got out of bed. There's not much else to photograph around here at night other than the stars."

Apart from getting a nice image to hang on his wall, Lincoln enjoys the process of taking the shots, and being at nice locations under a starry sky. "I try to come up with new ideas and techniques rather than keep churning out different versions of the same basic image."

"Forgotten" - Old barn, Mitiamo VIC ~ © Lincoln Harrison (click to see larger)

"I've done a lot of milky way shots but this was the first time under a very dark sky. I drove around all day looking for a suitable foreground. I gave up and started heading home, and then I saw this old barn."

"Noctis" - Lighthouse, Cape Schanck, VIC ~ © Lincoln Harrison (click to see larger)

"I tried to get this shot three or four times, but the seas were always too fierce to venture down to the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.  I forgot to take my torch with me, and had to climb back up in the dark. I tumbled down the cliff a few times, [but] finally made it to the top after about 2 hours, covered in cuts and bruises."

Lincoln's biggest challenges come from the weather. "Quite often I'll drive for hours with clear skies the whole way, [and] ten minutes before I arrive at my location, the clouds roll in." On the 'Pinnacle' photo,  he was very lucky with the conditions, but for every other time he's been there it has rained non-stop!

"Fusion" - Dead Tree, Ravenswood VIC ~ © Lincoln Harrison (click to see larger)

"This location is a ten minute drive from home. I shoot there a lot. I love that tree. This was a test shoot when I got the D800E. It ended up hanging on my wall 50 inches wide."

Lincoln's Cannot-Do-Without Equipment List:

• Nikon D800E (Low Pass Filter w/Anti-Aliasing Removed)
• Nikkor 14-24mm Lens (AF-S Zoom Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED AF)
• Gitzo 3532s Tripod with a Manfrotto 405 Geared Head

Lincoln's Most Valuable Tools, Apps, and Software:

• On his iPad, he plans his shots with: The Photographer's Ephermeris, Google Earth, Dark Sky, Tides AU, and OZ Weather.
• On his PC, he does all his post processing with Adobe Photoshop CS6.

"Bib Bang" - Dead Tree, Ravenswood VIC ~ © Lincoln Harrison (click to see larger)

"I was doing some light painting tests at my favorite tree when I came up with this idea. Who says primes are better than zooms?"

More of Lincoln Harrison's work can be seen at his 500px page.