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Fine art print of an extraordinary composite photograph showing an estimated 14,000 satellite trails crossing the night sky above Mt Taranaki, New Zealand.
14,000 Satellite Trails over Mt Taranaki
Taken: 9 September 2026 (8:18pm – 10:13pm)
This is easily one of the most unusual and challenging photographs I've ever created!
I set up my camera to photograph the night sky above Mt Taranaki for almost two hours, capturing 578 photographs, each with an 8-second exposure.
What followed was an enormous editing project that took around 45 hours to complete. I painstakingly combined the satellite trails from the individual photographs into one image, revealing an astonishing amount of activity in our night sky.
I estimate there are approximately 14,000 satellite trail appearances across the 578 photographs. These aren't necessarily 14,000 different satellites, as the same satellite can appear in multiple exposures.
There's also another story hidden in this photograph. If you look closely at the mountain, you can see the lights of two mountaineers making their way down Mt Taranaki in the darkness. Over the course of nearly two hours, their headlamps traced their progress down the mountain.
When I first started editing this photograph, I had absolutely no idea how much work it would involve!
While the result is visually spectacular, it also highlights a growing concern for astronomers — the rapidly increasing number of satellites orbiting Earth and their impact on our night skies.
This is NOT AI-generated. Every satellite trail was captured by my camera and carefully combined from the original photographs.
A photograph that tells a remarkable story about our changing night sky.
EXIF: Composite of 578 photographs, 8-second exposures, captured over 1 hour and 55 minutes.
© Brendan Larsen Photography
Printed on premium fine art photographic paper.
Prices in NZ Dollars. Foreign currencies calculated automatically at current rates after processing. Shipping, if required, is calculated at checkout.
Fine art print of an extraordinary composite photograph showing an estimated 14,000 satellite trails crossing the night sky above Mt Taranaki, New Zealand.
14,000 Satellite Trails over Mt Taranaki
Taken: 9 September 2026 (8:18pm – 10:13pm)
This is easily one of the most unusual and challenging photographs I've ever created!
I set up my camera to photograph the night sky above Mt Taranaki for almost two hours, capturing 578 photographs, each with an 8-second exposure.
What followed was an enormous editing project that took around 45 hours to complete. I painstakingly combined the satellite trails from the individual photographs into one image, revealing an astonishing amount of activity in our night sky.
I estimate there are approximately 14,000 satellite trail appearances across the 578 photographs. These aren't necessarily 14,000 different satellites, as the same satellite can appear in multiple exposures.
There's also another story hidden in this photograph. If you look closely at the mountain, you can see the lights of two mountaineers making their way down Mt Taranaki in the darkness. Over the course of nearly two hours, their headlamps traced their progress down the mountain.
When I first started editing this photograph, I had absolutely no idea how much work it would involve!
While the result is visually spectacular, it also highlights a growing concern for astronomers — the rapidly increasing number of satellites orbiting Earth and their impact on our night skies.
This is NOT AI-generated. Every satellite trail was captured by my camera and carefully combined from the original photographs.
A photograph that tells a remarkable story about our changing night sky.
EXIF: Composite of 578 photographs, 8-second exposures, captured over 1 hour and 55 minutes.
© Brendan Larsen Photography
Printed on premium fine art photographic paper.
Prices in NZ Dollars. Foreign currencies calculated automatically at current rates after processing. Shipping, if required, is calculated at checkout.