Problems with Star Trail Photography?

[campeterz]

I have had some trouble when I am trying to do some long exposures of the stars. It always seems to get really noisy, even when I am at ISO-100. I was having problems using ISO-100 so I cranked it up to 200 or 400 for most the the shots, with even more noise. I have heard that temperature can play a role in noisy photos, is this true? It could also be because of my older body ( Canon 20D)

1- (20D, 18-55kit, ISO400, f/4, 23 minutes)

2- (20D, 18-55 kit, ISO400, f/3.5, 7 minutes)

 

[Big Mike]

Excessive heat can cause more noise, but I doubt it's that hot at night, this time of year, even in CA.

I'm no expert on shooting the stars...but I think it's common to run some noise reduction on the images, or else there are some specific editing steps to take to get cleaner images.

 

[KmH]

The longer the image sensor has power applied to it, the hotter it gets because of electrical resitance, regardless the ambient air temperature.

You can make a series of much shorter exposures with some image sensor cool down time in between them, and then stack the series of exposures using image editing software.

photographing star trails - Bing

It looks like you also had issues with an unstable tripod being effected by some wind.

 

[campeterz]

Excessive heat can cause more noise, but I doubt it's that hot at night, this time of year, even in CA.

I'm currently vacationing in Hawaii

It looks like you also had issues with an unstable tripod being effected by some wind.

You are correct, I am using my flimsy travel tripodTonight I will probably use a bunch 30sec exposures on a higher iso with the noise reduction software on.