Star Trails in Granbury

[Joe_Lorenzini]

Went out to a ranch in Granbury and had a chance to try my hand at some star trails.

However, in retrospect I was ill-prepared to take the ideal image so I submit to you my first try at the subject.

What I did wrong:
1. I should have brought my 24mm TC lens to correct the distortion of the house (something I tried to correct in post but it looked awful).
2. I didn't bring my one remote that has a lock on it so no prolonged exposures but instead an image stack.
3. While the WB is correct, I wish I would have adjusted it so that the greenish cast from the lights didn't provide such an ugly foreground. I failed to realize the prolonged exposure would give me such a dynamic result.

D3, 12-24mm, ISO 200 using in-camera interval timing set to 30 seconds:


Moon in the lower left corner:


Exposures vary between 70-125 images stacked in PS. Both images were processed differently from each other.

Thoughts or suggestions?

Joe

[CaptainTom]

They are interesting.
Were you aware of the position of Polaris ?
A star finder helps a bunch. A very dramatic shot is one where polaris is centered and the rest "revolve" around it. Couple that with your building, and voila (zat is frinch for "holy crap").


P.S. it's Granbury.

[Joe_Lorenzini]

Originally Posted by CaptainTom

They are interesting.
Were you aware of the position of Polaris ?...

P.S. it's Granbury.

1. As soon as they make an iPhone app for polaris position, I'm all over it!
2. Turns out I can't spell. Thanks Tom.

Joe

[L Stegall]

Nice ranch! I like the idea of using the house and/or pool as an anchor to give some perspective to the star trails. About how long were each of your exposures that you stacked? I am looking forward to trying this technique this spring - we've rented a house on Pender Island (one of the Gulf Islands off BC), so I should have some nice dark and hopefully clear nights to work with. Any other tips?

[Joe_Lorenzini]

My exposures were about 20 seconds apart and I left the camera to do it's thing for approx 1-2 hours each (battery was nearly exhuasted after 3 hours of continuous shooting).

Tips: Disable any long exposure noise reduction settings (I didn't and thus breaks in the star lines).

The interval shooting gives a lot of flexibility in that I can custom design my own star trails (short vs long). Next time though, I'd like to try a one shot deal.

Be prepared to wait!

Joe