The skies that will leave you starry-eyed: Photographer captures 360° panoramas to mimic star trails in van Gogh's masterpiece

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With bold colours and long trails, these photographs look more like a painting of the night's sky by Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh.

But in fact photographer Vincent Brady managed to capture these dazzling images using a custom rig of four cameras - each with a fish eye lens attached to give a 360 degree view.

He managed to achieve a series of images that show the paths that the stars etch through the sky above some of the most beautiful landscapes in the United States.

Vincent Brad's Planetary Panoramas, like this one of Devils Tower in Wyoming, resemble Vincent van Gogh's masterpiece Starry Night

By combining the images taken by the four cameras together he has been able to create pictures that take on an almost surreal quality.

The technique has also enabled him to produce real pictures that bear a striking resemblance to van Gogh's masterpiece Starry Night.

Mr Brady said: 'The Earth is rotating at a steady 1,040mph - I created a custom rig of four cameras with fisheye lenses to capture the entire night-sky in motion.

'I created them on a number of cold, dark, sleepless nights under awe-spiring skies.'

Mr Brady had to obtain special permission from the resident Navajo to photograph this image of Monument Valley in Arizona overnight

Mr Brady has also used his innovative technique to show how the colours of the Northern Lights fill the sky above Iceland in the picture above

Mr Brady hiked two miles into the Utah desert at night to capture this picture of the huge Landscape Arch, which has a span of 290 feet

Mr Brady set each camera to take photographs continuously for around three hours with exposures of around one minute.

Each camera produces between 100 and 200 images. Mr Brady then edits the images of from the four separate cameras to combine them into startrails.

He then stitches the resulting four images together to make seamless star trails that he calls Planetary Panoramas.

He hit on the technique in 2012 while experimenting with shooting 360 degree views of landscapes.

He said that he wanted to capture the entire night-sky in motion as the Earth rotates at 1,040mph.

STARRY NIGHT: VAN GOGH'S EVOCATIVE SPIRALS MAY HAVE BEEN INSPIRED BY GALAXIES 

The strange swirls in the sky that appear in Starry Night by Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh have been greatly debated.

The artist created the masterpiece between 16 and 18 June 1889 from the view out of an asylum window. Some have claimed that the shapes in the night's sky were extensions of van Gogh's fragile mental state at the time.

But a recent claim suggests that the spirals actually depict galaxies and may have been inspired by drawings of the cosmos at the time.

The claim was made by American artist and photographer Michael Benson in his new book, Cosmigraphics.

Of particular interest, he says, is a drawing of the Whirlpool Galaxy - official designation M51a - by Anglo-Irish astronomer William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, in the mid 19th century.

To observe the night sky, Lord Rosse built the largest telescope at the time - one with a mirror six feet (1.8 metres) in diameter - with which he observed the galaxy and made his drawing.

The Starry Night now hangs in New York's Museum of Modern Art.

The swirls in Vincent van Gogh's masterpiece Starry Night, one of his most famous paintings, are thought to depict galaxies drawn at the time

Each image shows how the stars appear to rotate around the north star.

Among the locations he has taken photos are the Delicate Arch in Utah - a 65 feet freestanding archway of rock, Devils Tower in Wyoming, Monument Valley in Arizona, and Logan Pass at Glacier National Park.

Mr Vincent said: 'I find the best results when scoping out locations in the daytime before going out into the pitch blackness.

The custom camera rig used by Mr Brady (above) allows him to capture a 360 degree view of the landscape and sky over several hours

Trails left by the stars in the sky above Delicate Arch in Utah appear to mirror the layers in the orange sandstone beneath in the image above

Mr Brady has also used his technique to produce globe like 360 degree views of places like the one above of Sleepy Hallow in Michigan

The brief flashes of light produced by fireflies also intrigue Mr Brady and he has used his technique to capture them like in the photo above

'I typically but not always setup just before sundown and take a few photos while sunlight is still present and blend in these shots with the night scene to bring out some details in the elements.

'My rig has taken me to firefly parties in Missouri, dark eerie nights at Devils Tower and through Logan Pass at Glacier National Park.

'I've been up the mountains of British Columbia and around the amazing arches and sandstone monuments in the Great American Southwest.'

The planet seems to revolve around the tip of this totem pole shaped rock in Arizona thanks to the 360 degree photography technique