Star trails

[nick197]

Here's the first time i've had a crack at capturing this, Let me know what you think.
This image consists of 35 images and each image is a 30 second exposure. ISO is set to 200. Then each image is stacked using editing software, I used a tripod to keep it perfectly still.

This image consists of 115 images, The ISO was 1000.

 

[Mike]

They are awesome pictures dude!

Whats the software you use?

 

[nick197]

I thought you'de like them mate, I used and downloaded this link
http://www.startrails.de/html/software.html

It seems to work really well even when the lens steams up lol.

 

[theederv]

I had a go at this once, didn't turn out as good as yours though!

 

[Nick.]

WOW! Thats awesome! they are stars? seriously like this! :thumbup:

 

[nick197]

That's a nice shot theederv

 

[Roy]

Brilliant pics gents

 

[theederv]

That's a nice shot theederv

Thanks mate, I prefer yours, I think we both need more patience, I reckon a stack of 300 images @ 30 secs would be perfect, but that's a long time to be sat clicking the remote over and over!!

 

[R1chard]

Can I ask why you need so many shots? Is it basically the more shots the longer the trails?

Scratch that just read the link, so Let me see if I got this right, you take more shots of around 30 seconds and stack them in order to get the trails (more shots/longer trails) but still keep the sky relatively dark as opposed to if you take one reeeeaaaalllllyyyyyy long exposed shot (longer exposure/longer trails, but brighter sky due to the length of exposure time). Is that about right?

 

[theederv]

Can I ask why you need so many shots? Is it basically the more shots the longer the trails?

Scratch that just read the link, so Let me see if I got this right, you take more shots of around 30 seconds and stack them in order to get the trails (more shots/longer trails) but still keep the sky relatively dark as opposed to if you take one reeeeaaaalllllyyyyyy long exposed shot (longer exposure/longer trails, but brighter sky due to the length of exposure time). Is that about right?

It's more a case that, you could happily expose the camera in one long shot for 8 hours @ ISO 100 F/20 or more. But the noise in the image would reach a critical point after the shutter was open for an hour or so. Doing it this way, and stacking the images reduces the amount of image degradation created by the noise.

An interesting experiment, take a DSLR, leave the lens cap on, set to bulb and IS0 200. Leave exposing (with the lense cap on) for as long as the battery will last....16 hours is possible. The image you get is just white noise, even though the sensor has not been exposed to any 'visible' light at all.