A Dark Night at Arches Park

Stars of Orion and Canis Major (with the bright Sirius at lower left) trail above a beautiful natural arch. Located near Moab, Utah, Arches National Park is home to over 2,000 natural sandstone arches. The park lies atop an underground salt bed, which caused the formation of the arches, sandstone fins, and enormous monoliths in the area. The salt bed was deposited over the Colorado Plateau around 300 million years ago when a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated. Over countless millennia, the erosive forces of water and wind have shaped the geologic wonderland we see today at Arches. As noted by the photographer “The numerous sandstone arches produce natural windows into the sky. So it offers the perfect setting to unify Earth and Heaven in a series of photographs using long time exposures on dark, moonless nights. This photo captures the graceful arc of star trails through the timeless geologic picture frames of Arches National Park”.