Star Trails

Stars are just an incredible thing to witness. Just the majestic ambiance of these massive balls of fire are incredible. I've always been intrigued by these celestial objects and I've always wanted to capture the incredible essence that these things give off. So one of the only ways to do this is to shoot photos of them. There are many ways to shoot stars, from galaxy pictures to star trails. In this post, I'm going to provide some information on how to create star trails, which are as cool as they sound. Then on the next post, I'll tell you how to shoot some galaxy pictures. I've always had a liking for the galaxy and stars and stuff, and since I want to be an astrophysicist I guess that makes sense. It's so incredible on how diverse star formations can be. With star trails, you'll never look at the stars in the same way.

This is just awe-inspiring...
Creds to 4 Image Gallery

Okay so I have to confess before I start giving tips: I HAVE NOT yet done star trails, so this is mainly based off of other people's accounts of trying it. I'm hoping these people are trust-worthy, because I'm going to go off of their settings as well. So we'll try this together! Later on (once I take some photos) I'll share them with you guys! But for now I'll have to just give you the settings so you can take some pictures as well! 

Finding the right day (well, night actually):

So for this kind of shoot the night has to be absolutely perfect. The moon can't be seen at all, and if it is, then good luck getting a decent exposure. Also, any type of cloud cover will not be satisfactory. If any clouds are in the sky, then the pictures won't turn out well at all because the clouds will blur the photos and white them out. It also needs to be cold, or else the lens will have condensation on it after a while, making the shots blurry. One of the last things you need to do while getting set up is point your camera at the North Star. Since the Earth is spinning around the North Star, once you take the exposures the other stars will have seemed to be circling the N.S.. This is how star trails are created. So to sum it up: no moon, no clouds, no light pollution, must be cold, and you have to point the camera towards the North Star. To find when and what time to shoot these photos, I recommend Photographer's Empheris, an incredible app that's free for download that tells you when it's a good time to shoot these photos. 

The Settings:

So there are quite a few steps to getting the right photo here. First of all, you need to make sure you have all of the proper equipment. Obviously you need a tripod, similar to all long exposures. Another good thing to have is a leveler. This is helpful for obvious reasons. Acquiring the largest wide-angle lens would also help, just to get as much of the scenery in as you can. Now here are the actual settings that I got from Tony Northrup on Youtube. So you set your lens to manual focus to start. Now you must set your lens to the infinity symbol. DON'T go all the way over to the end (past infinity). Set your aperture to the lowest you can get (f/4 or lower) and put your exposure to 30 seconds. ISO needs to be around 1600. After setting this up, you pretty much have everything ready. Now you just go outside during the middle of the night and shoot for around two or three hours. This will take tons of photos (obviously) and afterward, you just use the imaging software known as StarStaxx to compile the pictures to create that circular effect. After that you're pretty much done!

I'll tell you guys how it goes after I try this myself!

Just Incredible...
Creds to Astro Pixels