Star trails

Hi All,

This is probably a stupid question, but I'm a newb at most photography techniques.

I really want some help with how to take star trail photo's.

Ideally I need to know what I need to do. I have a remote for my camera (Rebel XS) but I'm not sure where to even start. What lens should I use, aperture, how do I set it up, etc.?

I would appreciate any help on this. I am able to go as wide as 18mm, but cannot go any wider as I do not have a lens capable of wider shots yet. Is it just a straight forward 10 - 30 min single exposure shot, or do I need to take something like 20 - 30 individual shots at 1 minute each and then stack them? If I need to stack them, what program do you use?

Any assistance here would be great.

Thanks,

If I were you I'd search through this forum and see what other people have for set ups and then start asking more specifics from those.

To start, in order to answer "what lens should I use?" we need to know what lenses you have to work with--a camera would also be good, so we can know what sort of noise control you have. Also looking in how to use the remote might help you a bit, but we can't give you any tips unless we know which one it is...

In my limited experience, to get good star trails, you need to stack. Always check the stickies on the tops of threads. This link has a bunch of different links to different threads that have quite a few different programs: https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=766644

Also, I did a quick look through on old posts in the Astronomy and Celestial Talk and saw a few programs, just search stacking program and you should be able to find a few things.

Sorry this probably isn't that helpful, but it's always good to do research and put in info about camera lenses, and equipment that you have before making a new thread that asks a lot of question about a very searchable topic.

Thanks for the info...

I did a search on star trails and did not find too many tips on what settings, etc. to use. or a general guide.

To answer your questions though:

I am using a Canon Rebel XS with a wired remote. I can set my camera to BULB which gives me extended exposure times. The remote works perfectly.

As for my lenses, I have a Canon nifty-fifty, a standard 18-55mm lens (Canon) and the Tamron AF 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC.

As for the software, I did a little research and have found a Freeware app that allows me to stack pictures.

Thanks,

Hope this helps provide more information which can hopefully help me

Perhaps my search criteria was not as comprehensive as it could have been. Thanks for those links.

Always check stickies

I won't go much further into this since I rarely do stacking with star trails. I do know the goal is to have as little noise as possible (so use a low ISO) since you're stacking, you're also stacking the noise, thus the more images with noise, the nosier the image will become overall. I would recommend the fifty since it has the lowest aperture to start off with. Using live-view is helpful in getting accurate focusing--the 10x zoom factor is quite helpful and having f/1.8 should allow you to see a few stars on the screen to make sure they're in focus.

Make sure you're in a very dark area with no street lights or any other source that can refract through your lens. Use a tripod, and look into the manual for your remote. You should be able to set it up for an exposure every 30 seconds for several hours and that should get you some good trails.

I'm not sure what exposure times should be, that is for someone with more experience than I have. I would assume ISO 200 f/2 and a 15 second exposure might get you something, but probably not as many stars--though I don't think that's as much of a problem in long star trails...

Just about sorted, but worth mentioning that, IMHO, the most important thing about a star trail shot is the foreground that the trails are against Just as an example, the OP here

SolEterna wrote in post #12807148
Thanks for the info...

I did a search on star trails and did not find too many tips on what settings, etc. to use. or a general guide.

Look down in the bottom left corner of this page - you'll see a list of similar threads.

However, here's a quick guide -

Use your 18-55mm lens, set to 18mm. You'll need to focus it manually at infinity. You can't do this by just turning the focus ring all the way round as the will focus past infinity. Try manually focussing on a distant light, or the moon, or a very bright star.

You'll need to have the camera on a steady tripod, pointing north. Put the camera into manual mode and choose the following settings: f3.5, 20s, ISO400. Use a remote release to take an image and check it out. Zoom in to check the stars are focussed and that the light pollution isn't too bad. Then use the remote to shoot mulitple 20s exposures for an hour or two.

When it's finished put the lens cap on and take two more shots. These are the dark frames the software will use later.

Startrials.de is the best software to use.

Thanks everyone for the commentary and thanks to hollis_f for the detail provided on how to do it. As soon as there is a decent enough evening as the weather here has been terrible lately.

Thanks again,

Let me know how it goes. I'm in the exact same position. I have the same camera, same lens, and a wired and wireless remote. I'll have to figure out how to set the remote up, as well, to take burst shots. Thanks to everyone who posted on here, it helped me too.

Yes, I've also been wanting to try this sometime very soon, thanks for putting up all the info!

hollis_f wrote in post #12808435
Look down in the bottom left corner of this page - you'll see a list of similar threads.

However, here's a quick guide -

Use your 18-55mm lens, set to 18mm. You'll need to focus it manually at infinity. You can't do this by just turning the focus ring all the way round as the will focus past infinity. Try manually focussing on a distant light, or the moon, or a very bright star.

You'll need to have the camera on a steady tripod, pointing north. Put the camera into manual mode and choose the following settings: f3.5, 20s, ISO400. Use a remote release to take an image and check it out. Zoom in to check the stars are focussed and that the light pollution isn't too bad. Then use the remote to shoot mulitple 20s exposures for an hour or two.

When it's finished put the lens cap on and take two more shots. These are the dark frames the software will use later.

Startrials.de is the best software to use.

or, if you are a Mac person there is StarStaX, http://www.markus-enzweiler.de/software/​software.html

it uses multi processors and is faster for 1000's of images, it's never crashed for me.

This little feature makes for unique star trails in videos,