Muddus national park (+)

I like this ver much. Excellent work with the star trails and the hint of the Aurora. The only thing I'd like to see is just a bit more light in the stream/river. Very nice image

This is truly marvelous, Roel. The detail in the trees sets off the aurora beautifully and you have done a great job getting rid of noise!

Roel, Star trails don't bother me at all. I think there's a place for both trails and pinpoint stars. This is a terrific look at the sky enhanced wonderfully by the subtle colors of the aurora seen so cleanly through the trees. The larger version shows that there's enough light in the stream and foreground so they add a good sense of place.

Lovely Aurora and star trails. I am having little trouble with the very dark immediate foreground. Otherwise, this quite nice.

--P

I see you also got a bit of diffuse auroral glow in there. Must be fall as the days are short enough to get darkish and you still have running water. Kudos for having your own preferences and ways of doing things. There just isn't enough light intensity in a long exposure to get any foreground detail, so I understand the limitations. Use a really high ISO and you won't get the star trails, at least not in a single image.

Cheers: Tom

The foreground doesn't hold a lot of interest for me but the trees against the light and the star trails is very strong. I could see maybe trying to bring more light and saturation to the water in the foreground.

Thanks for the honest comments everyone! Here is a re post with some more detail in the foreground. Does it work better?

I love your idea here. The star trails look good. The fg isn't bad either but it's too dark to for me to make it interesting.......even in the repost. But I think it's how it really looked like

Roel - The FB still seems to dark, even in the repost. While I'm sure it was indeed pretty dark, I think it still needs more exposure, especially if it composes such a large part of the image. The tree top and stars combo would be a really nice crop for me. No problem with the star trails for me.

New attempt, starting from scratch. Curious for your thoughts!

The start attraction (pardon the pun) is the sky. The dark foreground diminishes it's impact. I guess I'm in the minority in that I like the river but I would crop to eliminate about half of the dark area. Crop through the bottom of the dark rock in the center.

I think this is a pretty cool image. You integrated the night sky and the land very effectively.

Hi Roel,

This is such a beautiful and cool image to take in Roel.
The star trails, greens from the northern lights, and tree tops are such a sweet combination. They all have such a strong relationship in this image. I have been looking through the progression of enhancements to the foreground, and I think each repost is an improvement. the final version works for me, but I like the idea of a crop up a bit. I think Igor had a god idea on the crop and it could make for an even stronger image.

Different, mysterious and dark, love the take. Night it is and night it shall be, the feeling of reality is dominant.