Help me get a shot

I have never really tried to capture the star trails before and I really want to give it a go.

I use a 30D - 17 - 40 L - 100 - 400 L IS
remote release with locking button for super long exposure.

Tripod etc etc

How exactly do you get these star trails?
I would imagine that a DSLR's sensors pixels would just max out after a while..

Well, this guy may not see this again, but tonight would be a great night to try this. The Geminid meteor shower should be peaking today and tomorrow. Best time is going to be the first half of the night before the moon comes up. There should be anywhere from 1-2 meteors a minute at the peak, so if you do a long exposure you may get some cool shots.

I'm going to experiment tonight. I took five 30 second shots last night and then found out how to make a really, really rudimentary "bulb" for my XT/350D and took a 2:09 shot in my drive way.

I'm going to go out tonight, try to find a dark field and try to get some good stuff.

I've searched here and not really found any real guide lines. The methods seem to be all over the map.

I'll be taking my XT, 18-55 kit lens, and my cheesy "bulb" switch. I'm going to try ISO 100 F11 and maybe 15 min, 30 min, and 45-60 minute depending upon how much time I have and how tired I get. I'll turn off the long exp noise reduction. Wish me luck.

Please tell us how it goes and post some examples. I am curious to see how it all turns out.

NSN had an article on this last month by EJ Peiker.

http://www.naturescape​s.net/112006/ej1106.ht​m

Great site TammieO. Thanks!

Well, the past 2-3 days have been crystal clear day an night. Yesterday was warmer than it had been the last few weeks, and I think that ruined it for me. As the evening came and went the sky got more and more hazy and by the time I was ready to go out there were clouds. Only a few really bright stars were out. I took one 25 min shot and actually managed to catch a meteor, but the shot is horrible due to the cloud cover and light pollution. I'm going to keep tinkering with photographing star trails for the next couple of weeks as weather permits. I ordered an RC-1 and Slik Pro 700 DX today which should help.

Here's the one shot that I got cleaned up a bit. The meteor is in the lower left, very faint, much longer than the star trails, and at about 70* from the vertical.

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Use the widest angle you have to get lots of trails. (The 100-400 will just give you a few trails).. You can get well over 30 minutes exposures. Use a tripod and ISO 100.

It has to be really dark... Haze and city lights will make the sky very light and wash out the trials.

Here's a 27 minute exposure... (The tree and sky were black to my eyes, but a distant sodium vapor lamp was enough to illuminate it and a bit of the sky during the long exposure).

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smasraum wrote in post #2400297
Here's the "bulb" remote that I made and used. It actually works great, but I just can't handle that thing hanging off of my camera. I had considered getting some parts from Radio Shack and making one that was a bit nicer, but when you can get the RC-1 for $25 why bother.

how did you wire that thing up??

jiggling_john wrote in post #2400947
how did you wire that thing up??

Here's the place that I found the directions. Using his directions you can autofocus as well as trigger the shutter once or trigger(bulb)

http://www.flickr.com …iscuss/72057594​104452905/

Here's the pic showing the wiring

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