Summer Solstice 2014

Solstice sun at 10-minute intervals, camera pointing almost straight up

Family illness on the summer solstice kept me home where we don't have a view to the north. So I placed a fisheye 8mm lens on a full-frame body (which is why you see black edges), pointing almost straight up against the south side of a tall tree, and programmed the camera to record images at 1-min intervals, exposure set for the sun. After sunset, I exposed for the foreground without moving the camera.

Combining all 760 frames creates a white solar stripe across the sky. So I backed off to 76 frames at 10-minute intervals. A passing cloud partially blocked the sun about two-thirds of the way across the sky. This was one of our first blue-sky days in weeks, and it snowed here in northwestern Montana just five days ago - now we turn and head back towards winter.