Stars stars stars

I'm still dabbling with settings and processing. Opinions?

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Looks cool, but in my opinion star shots of any kind are always better when you can see some landscape in the photo, it just frames it better and gives you a better depth. Just my 2 cents.

Nice job! You don't always need landscape, it's all about the stars and the astro people especially could care less about seeing some earth in the shot.

A few things to work on in processing:

1st and 2nd photos - Your stars a very blue and there are a lot of teal stars, you've got too much blue and green in your white point and need to add more red to the white end. The bottom left of the 1st and bottom center of the 2nd are brighter than the rest, see if a little curves can flatten some of the background out more.

3rd one - Very nice, the background is pretty green, try lowing the green in curves and raise the blue and red in the blacker area to make the background more black and less green. The far right has some distortion to the stars, likely a lens or trailing issue, use a little clone stamp and shorten the stars to make them appear more round. Focus is very good on this one!

I think the first 2 would look awesome if there were some tree silhouettes or something along the edges, like if it was taken from the ground of a low-density forest. Still, good job!

I've done plenty of star shootin. Sometimes, just the beauty and symmetry of the stars is all one needs.
And certainly there's a time and place to include an earthly prop.

nice

zeldaboy101 wrote in post #10122202
You don't always need landscape, it's all about the stars and the astro people especially could care less about seeing some earth in the shot.

I would agree with this 100% if one was taking a picture of a specific star and/or constellation or some other celestial object, but I feel like it helps the photo a lot to have landscape in it if you're taking a picture of the entire sky. That's just my opinion. I'm not an astrophotographer by any means.

CaptainTonus wrote in post #10123808
I would agree with this 100% if one was taking a picture of a specific star and/or constellation or some other celestial object, but I feel like it helps the photo a lot to have landscape in it if you're taking a picture of the entire sky. That's just my opinion. I'm not an astrophotographer by any means.

It all comes down to what you're used to, I try to have as little earth as possible in most of my widefield shots like these because i'm trying to catch as much of the constellations and/or milky way as possible. Start with astrophotography i'm more astro oriented, and you guys starting with regular photography would be more inclined to use more landscape.

Nice, but I agree they all look a little blue...but blue's a nice colour so it's not a bad thing!

And I also say that a little landscape in some astro shots can improve the image, and for me, with star trails, I always try to get some landscape in there. I personally feel it gives more of a sense of us being on a giant, rotating ball.

I like them all, but have to agree about the blue as well. Typically you should see other colors such as yellows and reds as well.

What lens did you use?
Looks like it could be CA, and, the star trails are exaggerating it.

As for having any landscape in the images, that completely up to you. But for most astrophotography you want to avoid it and only capture the sky.
With that said, when I shoot wide field star trail or star scape images I'll have some trees in there. Partly because I have no choice where I live, and I also use those same star trail frames for time lapse animations, and, the trees give the animation more dimension and depth when you can watch the stars move behind the trees. However, I will aim the camera high enough so I don't have man made structures such as my house or my neighbors. That's also to aim higher than most of the sky glow.