My Star Trail

[Scott™]

So tonight the skys were clear so I set out to capture a decent star trail. It's a shot I have tried before but with little success. Tonights effort was much better.

What I used

Nikon D5000
Tripod
18-55mm Kit lens
Hahnel Giga T Pro remote timer.

Camera settings

Bulb mode (in conjunction with remote timer)
F8
ISO 400 (moon was out)

The remote timer was set for 98 shots of 30 second exposures with 3 second intervals between shots. Then all shots were merged using star trails software that can be found here

http://www.startrails.de/html/software.html

Here was my result. I wish I had done it for longer than 98 shots, but it was freezing and I was bricking it being up the mountain on my own.

C+C Welcome.

Plumbstone Mountain Star Trail. by scott.thomas21, on Flickr

 

[DanFreemanPhoto]

Good effort. That could be even better if you lit the foreground up in one frame and merged them together.

 

[JamesBryan]

Looks good, i agree with Dan though.. but i suppose you just wanted to get off there?

Did you use a 'black frame' for this too?

 

[Ay Ay Ron]

Decent effort.
I need to get some done soon. I got that software yesterday. Did you only use this or did you use photoshop aswel?
I also need to get a decent timer otherwise i'll be using my laptop for setting the intervals

 

[Leeshez]

Very good effort

 

[Scott™]

Looks good, i agree with Dan though.. but i suppose you just wanted to get off there?

Did you use a 'black frame' for this too?

What you mean black frame mate?

Tbf star trails is some thing that takes practice. In my opinion the picture needs a darker night to expose more stars, more lighting on the rock and a longer length of time capturing. But I only know that from going out last night to see what results I would get.

Thanks for the comments though.

 

[Scott™]

Decent effort.
I need to get some done soon. I got that software yesterday. Did you only use this or did you use photoshop aswel?
I also need to get a decent timer otherwise i'll be using my laptop for setting the intervals

The images were layered using the software but the picture was then tweaked in photoshop. I shot in Jpeg as I didn't fancy editing 98 pictures in RAW.

Very good effort

Thank you

 

[JamesBryan]

What you mean black frame mate?

Tbf star trails is some thing that takes practice. In my opinion the picture needs a darker night to expose more stars, more lighting on the rock and a longer length of time capturing. But I only know that from going out last night to see what results I would get.

Thanks for the comments though.

Sorry, i meant Dark Frame. It's used for noise reduction apparently.

All is explained here: http://www.liquidinplastic.com/2008/06/startrails/

 

[Scott™]

Ahhh well nope I didn't use one

 

[JamesBryan]

They also do a seperate shot which exposes the foreground

 

[Scott™]

Yea I've just been reading up on it. Think I'm going to head out tonight for another go if the skys allow.