Star trails for a newbie

[snatcher]

Fairly new to photography and on a steep learning curve. I have a holiday caravan on the Mull of Galloway Scotland where there is little light pollution. I do like taking sunrise and sunset shots,also wildlife and portraits but I now fancy trying to photograph the night skies.

My camera is an EOS 400D,my only lens is a Sigma 18-200mm and I posses a tripod and remote control start. Any advice on settings,exposures etc really appreciated.

Thanks in advance :)

John

[Catanonia]

ISO 100 and point it at the pole star polaris due north.

Set shutter to bulb and take 5 min exposures. Then google a few free star trail stacker progams to merge them. Should end up with nice round star trails around the pole star.

[snatcher]

ISO 100 and point it at the pole star polaris due north.

Set shutter to bulb and take 5 min exposures. Then google a few free star trail stacker progams to merge them. Should end up with nice round star trails around the pole star.


Bit of an old techniphobe so your reply loses me off ??? Was just thinking about one long expose on bulb to start off. I have had a veranda built onto our caravan so was thinking of incorporating some of that or some of the nearby village/harbour into the shot to give it a reference point. Here is the view from our veranda.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k38/snatcherphoto/1-109.jpg

Also this is our view looking directly over Luce Bay

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k38/snatcherphoto/6-62.jpg

Do you think it would be effective having some of the sea in view?? All input more than welcome

John

[Catanonia]

Give it a go, experiment. It might look really nice.

Just remember, the longer the exposure the more chance you will get of a white picture as you flood the sensor with light. Hence the need to take a series of shorter pictures and 'stack' them.

Here is a link to a program that will let you combine the pictures into one

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


BTW : Beautiful house / location. I am very jealous.

[snatcher]

Give it a go, experiment. It might look really nice.

Just remember, the longer the exposure the more chance you will get of a white picture as you flood the sensor with light. Hence the need to take a series of shorter pictures and 'stack' them.

Here is a link to a program that will let you combine the pictures into one

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


BTW : Beautiful house / location. I am very jealous.

No its not our house,I live in Whitley Bay,Northumberland. It is our holiday caravan where we are spending most of our retirement - in the summer anyway :)

Sorry digressing a bit !!!! Through reading your link I now understand what you mean. I appreciate your help/advice on this

Kind regards

John

[Adrena1in]

Wow, you're going to get some fantastic shots from there. I can almost see the star-trails now, arcing over the water and perhaps reflecting in it a bit if the water is calm.

As Catatonia says, I think you're better off taking shorter exposures and combining them as opposed to one long exposure. What if something goes wrong during that one shot and you knock the tripod or something? 20 minutes ruined.

Personally, and because I do get a bit of light pollution where I am, I tend to stick with 30s exposures, (though mainly because that's the longest my camera will do, (when not connected to the PC anyway), with zero intervention from me. I'm lazy and will set the camera going and then go indoors for half an hour.)

I set the ISO to 800 or 1600, aperture wide open and then perhaps stopped down one or two, In Camera Noise Reduction off, burst shooting mode on, Mirror-Lockup off, aim the camera, try perhaps one or two manual 30s test shots to make sure the exposure is to my liking, then I lock the remote shutter release down and go away for 20 or 30 minutes. Could do longer I guess, but I personally prefer my trails on the shorter side. I usually shoot at 18mm or less as well.

As an aside, there are two more advantages to the above technique I think;

1) When using the Startrails programme that Catatonia linked to, it builds the trails up bit by bit, and if you like what you see and don't want it to stack any more then you just abort the process and it stops.

2) I quite like trying to do timelapse shots, where I put all my images into a video, so rather than getting trails you get a video showing the movement of the stars across the sky. It's just as easy as doing startrails, (if you've got the right software of course), and can look great I think.

[snatcher]

Well at the moment "Star photography" is still to be attempted by me. :cool: Had loads of good advice so far and thanks for that. Apart from just doing "trails" trying a one off just catching the stars with an earth reference point - is that on????

Like I say now that we are retired we will be spending most of the summer over in our caravan in Drummore,Mull of Galloway,Scotland. Light pollutiion is minimal :)

Got a couple of places in mind for a star shot !!!

Here is the first one. This is me looking south,the lighthouse you can see is Scotlands most southern point. On the horizon is the Isle of Man approx 25 miles away from the lighthouse

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k38/snatcherphoto/1-126.jpg

The second one is Kirkmaiden Church in Drummore

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k38/snatcherphoto/2-106.jpg

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k38/snatcherphoto/Playmistyforme.jpg

From this position there is NO light pollution. I can take a shot facing east over Luce Bay or turn to the west and face Ireland. Question ? With my 400D and Sigma 18-200 lens what would be the best settings for me to get a shot of the "milky way" - not trails,just a one off shot??

John

[Adrena1in]

At 18mm you can shoot for maybe 20 seconds or thereabouts without getting too much in the way of trails. I'd go for a pretty high ISO and the aperture wide open to capture as much light as possible. Aim towards the Cygnus region (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_(constellation)) to get maximum Milky Way-ness. Should be pretty easy to spot quite late into the night. The brightest star almost straight overhead at around midnight is Vega, in Lyra. Just east and a little north is Deneb, at the top of the "Northern Cross" which is Cygnus.

You might not get a huge amount of Milky Way detail in 20s, but take lots and lots of shots and use something like Deep Sky Stacker, (which is free), to stack all the images, then fiddle about with it in Photoshop or something to enhance the contrast and midtones and the Milky Way should start to appear.

P.S. I envy you your dark skies.

[Catanonia]

Awesome pictures mate. Make the most of retirement, looks very nice and quiet with lovely dark skies hopefully.

Cat