A North Dakota photographer's video has gone viral on social media after sharing 12-hour time-lapse footage of the night sky over Utah's Zion National Park.
Mike Abramyan compiled 1,400 shots to create the stunning video, which has received over 580,000 views on TikTok.
"When you're out under the stars in a truly dark location, you can literally see the entire landscape with no artificial lighting," he told Newsweek. "When you look up in the sky, you can clearly see a bright, cloud-like shape in the sky which is the core of our own galaxy. That feeling is so exhilarating to me."
In the TikTok post, Abramyan (@mikeabr) said he accidentally bumped the focus ring while setting up his camera. But this "mistake" has not detracted from his viewers' enthusiasm.
Stills taken from time-lapse footage show the night sky above Utah's Zion National Park.Stills taken from time-lapse footage show the night sky above Utah's Zion National Park.Michael Abramyan @mikeabr/TikTok"Even your 'mistake' is stunning. I see nothing wrong here, just phenomenal," said one user.
"It's kinda perfect amount of blur to put focus on the sky," said another.
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Abramyan has always been fascinated by the stars. "As a kid, I'd love to drive outside the city I grew up in and get as far from the lights as possible to reconnect with the stars," he said. "Eventually, I had the feeling of wanting to capture that feeling of being out there alone, and I began bringing a camera along with me."
During one such excursion, he caught sight of the aurora borealis, which he described as "a fast-moving white cloud on the northern horizon." It was only after looking at his camera that he realized what he had seen.
"From there on, I was hooked," he said. "I went out many times attempting to learn astrophotography and generally all types of photography."
Photographer Michael Abramyan says he has always been fascinated by the stars. "As a kid, I'd love to drive outside the city I grew up in and get as far from the lights as possible...Photographer Michael Abramyan says he has always been fascinated by the stars. "As a kid, I'd love to drive outside the city I grew up in and get as far from the lights as possible to reconnect with the stars." Michael AbramyanThe Milky Way is not visible to nearly 80 percent of North Americans because of artificial light pollution, according to the New World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness.
"My hope is that by traveling to dark, isolated places, I'm able to capture the essence of being under the stars—that feeling of insignificance amongst a vast and unending sea of stars and galaxies that we can see with the unaided eye," Abramyan said.
"I think it's crucial to remind people that there are still a few places like that on our planet and they are so worth visiting and, more importantly, preserving," he said.
Zion National Park is a prime location for this, with its sandstone cliffs and deep canyons, far from busy civilization.
Abramyan described the park as "a spectacular departure from the typical buzz we are accustomed to."
"The goal of my work is to remind my fellow humans that there's an entire universe out there," he said. "We just never get a chance to reconnect with it anymore."
You can follow Abramyan's work through his newsletter.
