Show us your Star Trails

Moreton Corbet Star Trail - taken the same night as Dave's image, for some reason my lens didn't fog up even though my camera was right next to his.


Moreton Corbet Star Trail by I Carvell, on Flickr
 
Really love these Star trail pics. Hopefully I will start taking some soon myself!
 
Hi...had a first attempt at Star Trails tonight and got this. 40-ish images stacked using free Startrail program. Had about 20 more images but I must of knocked the carmera, as the final image seemed blurred with the extra images. So this is all I got. Quite pleased with it and now looking for more locations!
 
Hi...had a first attempt at Star Trails tonight and got this. 40-ish images stacked using free Startrail program. Had about 20 more images but I must of knocked the carmera, as the final image seemed blurred with the extra images. So this is all I got. Quite pleased with it and now looking for more locations!

View attachment 7613
 
Now, THIS is a star trail!

I have the "Astronomy Picture Of The Day" app on my laptop and this turned up today. Some great images in the archive - almost as good as some on this forum...
 
It's nice to see so many star trails many of which I've seen before but some that are new some me (y) keep them coming

Nod said:
Now, THIS is a star trail!

I have the "Astronomy Picture Of The Day" app on my laptop and this turned up today. Some great images in the archive - almost as good as some on this forum...
Click to expand...

Now that is different, 360 panorama just mess with the head a little too much though :eek:
 
This is my first attempt at a star trail... :)



I think I had the aperture too narrow, and also the whole image is a little soft for my liking. Not bad for a first attempt though... ;-)
 
hollis_f said:
I would have expected reflections of the trails.
Click to expand...
My experience of reflections is that it seems to depend on how still the water is. If it's quite rough you don't tend to get reflections but also the long exposure will smooth the water to make it appear calm.
If it's quite calm you should get reflections.
 
JulesP said:
My experience of reflections is that it seems to depend on how still the water is. If it's quite rough you don't tend to get reflections but also the long exposure will smooth the water to make it appear calm.
If it's quite calm you should get reflections.
Click to expand...
Sounds good.
 
JulesP said:
My experience of reflections is that it seems to depend on how still the water is. If it's quite rough you don't tend to get reflections but also the long exposure will smooth the water to make it appear calm.
If it's quite calm you should get reflections.
Click to expand...

Exactly this you've got to have a perfectly still night to reflections and even the it will not be akin to a reflection :(
 
Acathla said:
This is my first attempt at a star trail... :)



I think I had the aperture too narrow, and also the whole image is a little soft for my liking. Not bad for a first attempt though... ;-)
Click to expand...

For a first attempt that a flipping good, there is room for improve as you've correctly identified but still a very good start, what were your single frame settings maybe I can offer some advice on that point (y)
 
MWHCVT said:
I love my star trail photography, I live for cloudless nights, I'll even go out when there is snow in the ground so long as there's no cloud around :) so given this shiny new forum dedicated to all things after the sun has gone to bed I thought why not have a community thread to show of your star trails...oviously comments on the photos are more than welcomed I'm sure anyone who post there photos in this thread will appreciate them...but not everyone is after full critique all the time (y) though personally I'd encourage anyone to also have your own thread to get critique on photos you post in this thread (y) and of course you should post a link to that thread if you have one (y)

To get the thread rolling I'll post a couple of my own recent star trails :)

Snowy Star trail


88/365 (819) by mwhcvt, on Flickr

Only about 5 minutes this one but it was more for my first ever pass of the ISS


ISS OVER CHESTERTON WINDMILL by mwhcvt, on Flickr

So anyway that's my initial offerings to get it going, lets see everyone else's star trails (y)
Click to expand...

Love the first one,I live not far from Broadway tower,maybe I will give star trails a try soon.
 
john starkey said:
Love the first one,I live not far from Broadway tower,maybe I will give star trails a try soon.
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You should do (y) it really is very rewarding, well I think anyway :) glad you like it
 
Itching to get out and try some star trails now. I had a go a couple of years ago but some clouds decided to ruin my fun. It's interesting that you can buy a dedicated warmer for lenses and telescopes. Do you think a couple of handwarmers (the disposible bag type ones) and an elastic band would be good enough to keep the lens warm? Perhaps with a scarf wrapped round to keep the heat in. I'm saving for a house at the moment and I can imagine what my girfriend would say if I bought an electric blanket for my lens :LOL:

Edit- woop! 100 posts :)
 
Carl Hall said:
Itching to get out and try some star trails now. I had a go a couple of years ago but some clouds decided to ruin my fun. It's interesting that you can buy a dedicated warmer for lenses and telescopes. Do you think a couple of handwarmers (the disposible bag type ones) and an elastic band would be good enough to keep the lens warm? Perhaps with a scarf wrapped round to keep the heat in. I'm saving for a house at the moment and I can imagine what my girfriend would say if I bought an electric blanket for my lens :LOL:

Edit- woop! 100 posts :)
Click to expand...

Yup those little pocket handwarmers (the ones with activated charcoal in them (£1 for 2 at Go Outdoors)) will work fine - I've not used them myself but have heard of many people using them with no issues:)
 
JulesP said:
Yup those little pocket handwarmers (the ones with activated charcoal in them (£1 for 2 at Go Outdoors)) will work fine - I've not used them myself but have heard of many people using them with no issues:)
Click to expand...

Smashing! These sort of ones are what I was thinking of using as I have a bunch left from a trip to Tallinn where it wasn't as cold as I was expecting :LOL:

disposable-hand-warmers-550x550.jpg


Going to go out this evening and try some star trails. I visited a small nearby town on Saturday to take some photos of an old iron railway bridge, but the results were a little boring. Hopefully this will prove to be a good location for star trails :)

I shall post my results tomorrow! Unless they're pants, of course...
 
Carl Hall said:
Smashing! These sort of ones are what I was thinking of using
Click to expand...

Some of those use-once handwarmers have finely ground iron inside. The heat is generated as that reacts with atmospheric oxygen to produce rust. The potential problem is that some of them are leaky, the iron powder can get through the small holes in the bag. Normally that's no real problem, but I wouldn't fancy dusting my lenses with iron filings.
 
hollis_f said:
Some of those use-once handwarmers have finely ground iron inside. The heat is generated as that reacts with atmospheric oxygen to produce rust. The potential problem is that some of them are leaky, the iron powder can get through the small holes in the bag. Normally that's no real problem, but I wouldn't fancy dusting my lenses with iron filings.
Click to expand...

Hmm I might wrap a plastic bag around my lens or something before I put the hand warmers on it then, thanks for the warning :)
 
Ok, here's the result of my first star trail attempt. It's about 85 30 second images combined in StarStaX. There are a couple of gaps where I had to remove some photos that had things in, and you may notice there's a rather large gap in the trail too... I stopped the camera for a few seconds to make sure the photos were coming out ok, but then I forgot to set the shutter release going again and sat down for a minute before I wondered why the clicking had stopped :oops: :$ Overall I'm really pleased with it and will have another go in a few days when the damn moon isn't shining like a lighthouse!


Langport Star Trails by Carl Hall Photography, on Flickr
 
Again not a bad first attempt:). Shows you've got the technique cracked.
With processing and removing frames together rid of planes etc, what you can do is rather than delete that frame and have a gap in the trails is just to use a brush in Photoshop, set your paint colour to black and paint over the plane trails in the frames that have them prior to stacking.
Then once stacking the frames, your software will ignore the big black line as it's only looking for the lighter pixels and you get no gaps in your trails:)

EDIT - the Moon can also be your best friend at night giving natural illumination. I've done a few trails under full Moon and they've come out pretty good:)
 
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