Star trails are pictures of the stars that makes it seem like the stars are moving across the sky, when in fact we're the peeps that are moving (well, the earth is, anyway). I've always wanted to take these type of pictures, and now I have the chance. I live up in the hills where there's not a lot of light pollution, it's currently dark (although we're gaining daylight like mad, so I won't be able to take too many more of these), and I'm up all night anyway. Great combo.
They're fairly simple, you do have to have patience, as well as some special equipment. First night I did it, I didn't even look online for directions. Probably because the internet was down (yep, I remember now). I knew it had to have a long exposure, so I figured I'd just set up my camera and come back in a couple of hours.Which is technically true, but not how I thought. I also didn't have a tripod (mine met an untimely death in a certain car accident we had last summer), but I'm real good at stacking junk together to place a camera on top of.
It was about 2 degrees and when I came to get my camera 2.5 hours later and there was frost forming on the lens (my camera may die at a younger age). The camera had also turned off, because of the battery dying. When I plugged the card into the computer, this is what I got:
I was stoked. There were trails of light! Okay, it was obviously way over exposed and the composition wasn't that great, but I felt fairly satisfied with my limitations (read: freezing, no tripod, not a lot of knowledge). For those photo nerds, the exposure was a little more than 30 minutes at f11.
Here it is again, but I messed with the levels:
Cool, right?
The next night the internet was working and I found a decent tutorial: http://www.jamesvernacotola.com/Resources/How-To-Photograph-Star-Trails/12233655_V7cX4D . There are a ton more, but I didn't want to waste time reading them.
I learned that you have to take many exposures and then combine them into one as well as set your f/stop to as high as it will go, like f2.8. Right.
To take multiple exposures and then combine them, you CANNOT move the camera. That means not even touching it. Luckily, I have a remote. I won't get into the technical details of it all, but I really need a lock cable release, but the remote was the second best thing.
Still not having a tripod, I used a hymn book (my mom said "It's nice you were able to use a hymn book for something other than hymns." Thanks, mom) and a cardboard box and set it all up on the snow/ice covered driveway. I'm in Alaska. We're hardcore.
Here's a short exposure (30 sec) so I would be able to tell what my composition was:
Good to go. I decided I'm come back every 10 minutes or so to stop the exposure and take another one. Unfortunately, after doing this a couple of times, the remote wasn't working (human error) so I gently touched the button. Remember when I said you can't even touch the camera? This is five images combined, but because I moved the camera, you can tell things don't line up.
It had potential. The faint green you see is part of the northern lights. They have not been coming out when I've been looking, so I got over them, and now I don't want them out (well, I still do, just not a lot) because my picture would just be a sea of green. It was said that this Friday and Saturday they're supposed to be out really strong, so I'll switch back over to northern light photography if that's the case.What can I say, I'm flexible.
Quick astronomy. You may notice the lights are going in a circular pattern. That's because of the north star, you know, the one that doesn't move so sailors can navigate by and such. If you look up star trails online, a lot of them have the north star as a kind of focal point so you see a complete circle of stars. I obviously did not position my camera this way (maybe because at the time I couldn't find it and was using a hymn book anyway, okay?).
Tonight I asked Doug if he had a tripod (I know, I need to buy another one). He did. Turns out tripods are a lot easier to work with than random junk or hymn books. I set this shot up on the deck right outside the family room so I it wouldn't be as much as a hassle to take another picture every 10 minutes. And...
Tomorrow night I'm planning on going out into the semi wilderness so I can get cooler foreground stuff and perhaps a better view of the whole night sky so I can be a cool photographer with the north star in the picture. Let's pray I don't get eaten by bears.
It's really incredible how fast the world is moving, even after 10 minutes the streaks of stars have moved a considerable distance. Stars may be my new favorite thing. Besides hot country singers.
