Cornish Milky Way

Nicely done. I prefer the second one as the foreground is more interesting. Have you tried reducing the noise a little to see if it cleans up the background a little bit?

I think they're satellites though as the trails look blunt ended. Shooting stars tend to fade in and out at the ends.
 
KevC said:
Nicely done. I prefer the second one as the foreground is more interesting. Have you tried reducing the noise a little to see if it cleans up the background a little bit?

I think they're satellites though as the trails look blunt ended. Shooting stars tend to fade in and out at the ends.
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Thanks.

I'm a bit disappointed with how noisy they are, to be honest. I'd forgotten to turn the in-camera NR on, I have tried using the noise reduction feature in PS elements, but it seemed to degrade the images but didn't seem to improve the noise very much. If anyone has any tips on noise reduction in post I would be grateful.

You're right they do look like satellites; the reason I thought they were meteors is because I saw a few while I was out - one quite large one went right in front of my lens just before I opened the shutter for the first shot. Also, most satellites I've seen are much higher in the sky than these streaks - usually pretty much overhead and tend to be moving across the sky - not moving towards/away from the horizon like these. Not sure which they are now!
 
JayJay said:
You're right they do look like satellites; the reason I thought they were meteors is because I saw a few while I was out - one quite large one went right in front of my lens just before I opened the shutter for the first shot. Also, most satellites I've seen are much higher in the sky than these streaks - usually pretty much overhead and tend to be moving across the sky - not moving towards/away from the horizon like these. Not sure which they are now!
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Get Stellarium. If you know the exact time and direction you can see what satellites were right there at that time. They're all over the place (unfortunately)!
 
Realised whilst out last night looking for extremely elusive Perseids, that they are more likely than not meteors, not satellites - I don't think satellites move quickly enough to leave trails that long in a single exposure.
 
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I've shot the ISS a few times. A 30s exposure gives a trail about as long as you have for that.
 
Could well be aircraft, the trans-atlantic routes run directly over Par.
 
Then you'd get dots along the lines for the navigation lights blinking on and off. Planes are distinctly different again.
 
Not always, have been caught out by that myself before, Have had shots with 4 or 5 aircraft heading down red8 or amber25 without a single navigation light showing during 30 second exposures. Same routes go over me about 100miles NE of Par.
 
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Definitely not meteors, I do a lot of night shooting and agree with KevC that a 30s exposure would give you this length of trail. Try taking multiple shots in a row and you will see the satellites moving across the frame. I use SatTrack on Android and it warns me 15 minutes before the iss or iridium flares are about to start. It also shows the satellites as well.
 
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