Pedestal Rocks Star Trails

Four-hour exposure.
Amazing that only one jet flew through the scene...

Pretty clean.

Very nice! How many images did you combine? Are these 30 second combos or longer? I was debating to go out tonight, but the skys may get cluttered up with clouds blowing in from the west. Tomorrow night seems promising in central Arkansas. I may head up to Flatside Pinacle.

Tim, that new "star camera's" sensor looks great, wow! great shot.

I like the dotted line through the middle, I assume that was the jet? Oh yea the rest of the image looks great too.

Looks great.

So with that new D3s, what ISO are you able to use for your star photos?

Star trails are generally shot at low ISO - this four-hour exposure was ASA 50. No need to go any higher. It would be tough for any digital camera to hold up with such a long exposure at anything other than its base ISO, and even then the noise would build up - hence the reason Mike asked about how many images were combined - that is the best way to do long-exposure star trails - shoot a series of them and then use software to stack them, however most of these stacked images won't hold up to much enlargement and the gaps will show up. There is one secret way I've seen that does work, but it it a lot of work to make it happen - I prefer a single long exposure.

Yes, the dotted line was the strobe light from a passing jet - darn airplanes. I was out shooing in Colorado one time many moons ago with a commercial pilot who was also a photographer, and he got really pissed off at all the jets flying around while we were trying to do some nighttime images - he never thought about how many photos he ruined every time he flew at night! Hey Tom, that was probably about the same time you were up there above Maroon Bells hiking with John Denver - you lucky dog!!!!!

Some of my star photos from the other night were shot at ISO 12,800 and they held up well, and 25,600 was OK, but anything above that is really no good - just sales hype. 6400 is pretty sweet though. The high-ISO Nikon camera is for pinpoint stars and not for star trails, although I'll be doing some of that as well just because the battery life on the new S is pretty amazing, but I'll use it at base ISO and nothing higher - way too much noise with a long exposure I'm sure.

This image of Pedestal Rocks was shot twenty years or something like that ago with a Pentax 6 x 7 and Velvia. Cost me a $20 battery for every single exposure (the battery would only last for one exposure this long). I've been doing light paintings for a long time...

I think you may have tricked a few of us with a 20 year old film shot. With the battery dying did you have to wake up to go turn the camera off, or could just stay asleep? In 20 years I wonder how many of us will still have all of our digital files.

Beautiful, Tim. I think you're going to have a lot of fun with that new toy of your's.

Did you happen to get any shots Sunday night? It was fairly clear to the east from where I was at, but alas, I didn't have a camera body to do the scene justice. But it was pretty nice just watching the flurry of meteors, and the rather balmy temps made it even more enjoyable.

No trick, just a standard post of an image without comment. I was awake all night - there was a bear around. The battery did not die during the exposure, there was just not enough juice left for a second exposure so I had to put in a new battery. It took me three trips and three nights to get this one image, each trip taking many hours of time during the night. I could only do one image per night, then had to drive back into Fayetteville to get the roll of 120 film processed. Once I got the film back to see the single image I had made I drove back to Pedestal Rocks, hiked back in, then set up the shot for another four-hour exposure, then hiked back out again to get the film processed. I don't recall what happened the first night but the shot was no good. The image was good the second night but the film was scratched - right across the only frame on the roll! So I had to return for a third night. That image turned out fine, and as an added bonus, I shot two other images on the way back to Fayetteville that have been best-selling images of mine for many years - a sunrise from Hwy. 7 and a shot of the sea of fog from Home Valley Bluff (from the opposite end where most folks shoot).

Nothing but clouds out here this week Bill, although that was fine - I don't get much of a thrill out of these events since they usually are little more than what any other normal night might be anyway. I often see many more shooting stars per minute most any night of the year than the advertised rate for them. Besides, most shooting stars are just faint scratches across the scene, something kind of like I got on the second night of this shoot, ha! Thank goodness film died in this household eight years ago...

Great redo of this shot. It seems to have the same white balance and look as the old one, but BETTER!

I always wondered how long you could go with the good batteries. Could you push it to 8 hours without noise reduction on?

This image is from the original cmyk scan of the 6x7 tranny from a Pentax 6x7 shot 20 years ago (the noise reduction was built in!) - they used to charge $100 for a good drum scan. I just opened that scan and converted it to srgb for the web - didn't do anything else to it. I doubt any digital camera could go 4 hours now (especially in the cold), although I'll be giving it a try. I suspect there will be quite a bit of noise though, especially without NR.

Oh wow, I thought this was the new camera... It looks good!

My brother and I have been thinking about building a camera cooling system that can drop the temperatures 30 degrees for long exposures

Sounds interesting. I'm working on an alternate power supply for unlimited exposures, but again the noise may crop up. The temp is no problem during the winter, but in summer we may have to combine our two systems and see how they work!

you two should put your heads together and build something that will keep the camera cold and an external battery warm. It would also need to keep me warm and make hot chocolate.

They make heated camera covers for broadcast cameras, maybe someone has come up with a heated cover for still cameras. Hand warmers would work if you can find a way to keep them against the camera's battery area. They put off a lot of heat, so be careful with overheating the camera's circuitry.

The issue with all this warm/cold stuff is that you need to keep the sensor cold and the battery warm - a warm sensor is very noisy, a cold battery will not last very long. So the key is to shoot on cold nights and use an external battery source, which is easy to keep warm with some chemical hand warmers. Or use film... (you also may need a dew heater to help keep condensation off of your front lens element) When making long exposures I just crawl into a sleeping bag and let the timer take care of everything...

Hi Tim i am new here and have few posts, I saw you ster trail shots and they are great. I have the Nikon D3 and D700 and I use them at ISO 400~1250 for astrophotos and i have taken some great shots from Fort Davis, Tx at the Texas Star Party. Have a look at my Milky Way photos: More here:

-Todd

http://toddhargisphotography.com/Nature/Astronomy/9687544_s8s5y#654456111_oqYEF

http://toddhargisphotography.com/Nature/Astronomy/Milky-Way-2/654456111_oqYEF-L.jpg

Yup, using clock drives/equatorial mounts to shoot deep space objects is a completely different ball game and a lot of fun, and requires a different set of equipment, obviously. I almost poured a concrete pad for an observatory out here ten years ago and was about to order some nice tele stuff and drives, but never did it. I like to include the landscape in the image, which you can't do with this sort of stuff. There is a small observatory just a few miles near me in Boston that I've been invited to connect my cameras too one of these nights, but I think I'll stick with the landscape and star images for now and leave the deep-space stuff to you other guys and just sit back and marvel at the great beauty of it!