Steele Creek Star Trails + short exposure

The sky finally cleared up at Steele Creek a little after 1:30 AM this morning. My brother and I decided it was time to shoot a few of the millions of stars you can see out there. I realize now I should have shot a 2 hour exposure with the focal length I was using. It's still a fun way to learn.

5D Mark II
32mm @ f/4.0
3611.0 seconds
ISO 200 (pretty clean)
no crop

Very clean!!

I have a 50D and one of the things I notice at night is that after several images in a row of the 5-10 minute type that I get lines in the images. Hot sensor I presume. Does not start off that way but after several long exposures it does start to happen.

About the only downfall of the 50D for me.

Great star trail image. I like how you included some of the bank to define the water reflection.

Here's a shorter exposure shot with a fisheye.

15mm
f/2.8 @ 38 seconds
ISO 4000

These are really striking images. Mixing photography with astronomy, two of my fav subjects . . . after birds of course!

Aaron, I really like the first one. Just a bit more exposure time and that one would have been out of this universe! Had to do it!

Aaron, my favorite is the first one. How did your battery hold up for the exposure? I assume you had noise reduction on?

Tom, I'd trust one fully charged battery for at least a 2 hour exposure with noise reduction on (4 hour). With the extra battery grip, you could easily do a 4 hour (8 hr with noise reduction). I'm tempted to try this!

Very nice Aaron. I was fast asleep at that time, like usual.

That first shot is really cool, the reflections in the water are fantastic. Thanks for sharing this!