Stunning Timelapse: Arizona Sky of Clouds and Stars

By Nancy Atkinson - May 13, 2014 at 10:46 AM UTC | Observing
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One of our favorite timelapse artists, Gavin Heffernan from

Sunchaser Pictures

recently was invited to Northern Arizona University as an artist in residence to speak with their photography students about his timelapse experiences. While there, he also took shooting field trips to some of the magnificent locations a few hours away, most notably Grand Canyon National Park and Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. There, Gavin shot footage to create this incredible timelapse that includes incredible sky views and some of the most unique star trails we've ever seen. He titled this timelpase as YIKÁÍSDÁHÁ (Navajo for Milky Way or "That Which Awaits the Dawn").

"The weather was very intense at times, with high winds, frigid temperatures, and stormfronts passing over us," Gavin wrote on Vimeo, "but the locations were absolutely stunning and the clouds parted for long enough to reveal some incredible starscapes, meteors, and the clearest Milky Way I've ever seen!"

Below are some beautiful stills from the film:

[caption id="attachment_111865" align="aligncenter" width="580"]

Native Star Trails over Grand Canyon from the YIKÁÍSDÁHÁ timelapse. Credit and copyright: Gavin Heffernan/Sunchaser Pictures. [/caption]

We asked Gavin how he created this unique "split" effect on this star trails image: "The split star trails shot was done using the mirror effect in final cut, which essentially splits the screen in half. I then bent the angles a little with a fisheye filter -- a little creative license/fun! Obviously nobody's going to mistake it for a real sky, I hope!"

You can see more images from this set on

Gavin's Flickr page.

YIKÁÍSDÁHÁ from Sunchaser Pictures on Vimeo.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com