Bit of help shooting stars.

I am planning to shoot the night sky for the first time. Dont know why, but in a bit over 20 years of shooting I have never have tried it. I am planing on doing a time lapse. So my question is very basic for thoes who have done it. What kind of exposures are you getting on a clear night and get the stars? And how long can you have the shutter open before the moving skys motion is a problem.

Any other tips would be great!

You will get some stars within a few seconds. The longer you leave the shutter open for the fainter the star that will show BUT you will soon see some trailing. You can minimise this by shooting furthest from the pole, low in the east should be good, but assuming you are shooting at say a focal length of 50mm you will see obvious trailing and rotation after about 10 seconds or so. Dont let that put you off though as they can still make nice shots, shoot wide open at max ISO.

Yes its frustrating but that is why some of us have big heavy tracking mounts and guide with one camera while shooting with another. Even so, I get more failures than successes as it is fraught with all sorts of problems.

What focal length are you intending to shoot at? I've done a few timelapses at 10mm and after 30s or so the trailing starts to become apparent, but is fine really...in fact a small star trail isn't that noticeable in a timelapse...it almost enhances the effect of motion.

As Chris says, a few seconds will get a few stars. I shot The Pleiades the other day at well under a second and was getting a few of the stars to appear, but this was at 600mm. 20 or 30 seconds at sub 20mm focal lengths and the aperture as wide open as possible will get plenty of stars in the frame...hundreds or thousands even, and also you'll get some Milky Way definition.

Be interested to know how you're going to put the images into a timelapse video. I've used Photoshop Elements before, which is pretty good, but wondering if there's anything better which is widely available.

Good luck, and let us see what you manage to create.

Not sure what length I will use. I want to include a playground in the shot so it will be pretty wide.