Star Trails

[anandonaqui]

It was amazingly clear tonight, so I thought I'd take a crack at some star trails. Here are my attempts. Only the third one has been modified in photoshop. C&C is welcome and appreciated!

10mm, f/5.6, 109 sec, ISO 800, flash white balance

10mm, f/5.6, 278.5 sec, ISO 800, Tungsten white balance

13mm, f/5.6, 1342.8 sec, ISO 800, Tungsten white balance
I believe the yellowish color to the left is light from my house.

as you can see, it took me a bit to figure out exactly how long to keep the shutter open for.

Quick question: What's the best way to keep the shutter open in bulb mode? It was about 10 degrees outside, so my hand got numb just depressing the button in the first two, hence the short exposure. For the third one, I grabbed a roll of painters tape (no residue!) and taped the button down.
Thanks!

 

[Frequency]

I really liked the first one; remove some unwanted elements from the second, that would also be fine; third is also very good

regards

 

[McNugget801]

Quick question: What's the best way to keep the shutter open in bulb mode? It was about 10 degrees outside, so my hand got numb just depressing the button in the first two, hence the short exposure. For the third one, I grabbed a roll of painters tape (no residue!) and taped the button down. Thanks!

By using a wired remote with a shutter lock.
You may want to google "stacking star trails" that method is a lot more fun and flexible.

 

[Undo]

Third is my fav.

 

[amateuraperture]

I'd look at this link for some ideas.

 

[McNugget801]

I'd look at this link for some ideas.

Cool link
But I disagree with the recommendation of using a low ISO.

 

[anandonaqui]

I'd look at this link for some ideas.

Cool link
But I disagree with the recommendation of using a low ISO.

Yeah, I tried take a few test shots at ISO 100, and it was all black. Had I used a longer exposure, I would have probably gotten trails, but very, very faint ones. I tried a couple 30" exposures at ISO 1600. The star trails were really vivid, but the noise was awful, probably because the D3000 has really bad high ISO performance. ISO 800 seemed to be a pretty good compromise with relatively low noise and fairly pronounced trails (at least for the bright stars).

I think I was able to limit the amount of noise from a 23+ minute (and no hot pixels) because it was so cold out.