What would it look like if you shot 250 frames over about 8 hours, starting at night and continuing until just after dawn, and then stacked them using star stacking software (which retains the brightness pixel across the stack)?

If you answered “it would look weird!” you’d be right. That’s the Moon you can see in the extreme upper right. However with the right scene – maybe ideally with no clouds – there could be potential for some interesting images with this technique.

Update: once one gets into the spirit, interesting images are not so hard to find. Here’s a stack made from the time lapse I shot in Rocky Mountain Park the other night. No night to dawn transition here, but the clouds rolling through result in some hallucinogenic sky effects…