Have you ever been to a secluded area far away from any city lights and lied on the ground to admire the captivating stars above?

I will never forget lying in the Namibian desert in Africa, an area that hosts some of the best stargazing on the planet. Literally every 1-2 minutes a shooting star falls before your eyes.

To truly appreciate how vivid the stars are when photographed from areas with limited light noise, photographers use time-lapse videos to create an amazing affect for the viewer. Time lapse videos are created by shooting a lot of photos of the same subject, spread out over a period of time, and then put back together into one video that plays back in a shorter amount of time.

Alex Cherney and Randy Halverson are following their dreams by producing some of the best time-lapse videos of the stars and Milky Way to date.

Ocean Sky by Alex Cherney

In a description of Alex’s video he states, “At a star party in August 2009 I took my first long exposure photograph of the night sky. I was so thrilled with the results that I dedicated most moonless weekends since then to photographing two things I love the most in nature – the night sky and the Ocean.” He later states “I’ve enjoyed the journey immensely.”

This time lapse video is the result of almost 1.5 years of work, 31 hours of taking images during six nights on Southern Ocean Coast in Australia.

Plains Milky Way by Randy Halverson

In a description of Randy’s video he states, “During the month of May, I shot Milky Way timelapse in central South Dakota, when I had the time, and the weather cooperated. The biggest challenge was cloudy nights and the wind. Ten seconds of the video is about 2 hours 20 minutes in real time. “

The Namibian Dessert by Neal Piper

In an article on CNN I wrote, ‘As a child, I wanted to be an astronaut so I could see what it would be like to see how vivid the stars are in space,’ ‘While looking up into the sky from the red sand in the Namib Desert, hundreds of miles from civilization, I thought to myself, “This is as close as I will feel to space without actually being there.”‘ This photo was chosen as CNN’s Travel Photo of the Day. 

The next time your stargazing and admiring the beauty of our universe, remember that for some people, this is what “Living the Dream” is all about!

Neal Piper