Desert Star Trails

JC

My first attempt at star trails. Well, I practiced the first two nights, got it right the 3rd night out. Long exposures, noise cancellation setting. Next time I'll try stacking many short exposures to see what it does to the ambient sky light (this is ~100 miles south of Vegas, can't avoid the spillover if I want the enclosed circular trail, at this location). This one taken after the moon set, a couple of hours after the second image.



For this one, a single raw image, but processed it once for the stars, once for the landscape. Timed for the moon to set ~1/2 way through the exposure.

shniks

Very nice star trails. You did a good job.


Cheers,

astrostu

Those are pretty good. I actually think the skyglow adds to the first image, but that's just me. I think it makes it a little more interesting. The second one I don't like quite as much as the first. The colors seem a bit weird to me ... not sure what it "should" be, though.

What was your aperture for these? And time - looks to be maybe an hour or so?

mr peas

Very cool. I have to admit how difficult this is to do when there is too much light in the sky (living in Vegas). I actually like both. Please post what settings you used!

JC

astrostu wrote:

Those are pretty good. I actually think the skyglow adds to the first image, but that's just me. I think it makes it a little more interesting. The second one I don't like quite as much as the first. The colors seem a bit weird to me ... not sure what it "should" be, though.

What was your aperture for these? And time - looks to be maybe an hour or so?

Here is a picture of the rock pile during the day (point and shoot)



So the startrail photo is just a little oversaturated/slightly too much yellow and cyan. The sky? Hard for me to say what the sky should be, I processed the raw for the sky about the same as the foreground, just less exposed.

North looking circular trail is two photos, each 60 minutes, with a 60 minute gap for the dark image, I wasn't sure I had enough battery for 4 hours, so broke it up. Must have started the exposure about midnight, or 1 am, just set the tripod up next to my cot, and went to sleep. If the wind came up I would have woke up and put the camera away. I agree the city glow adds something, the foreground was necessitated by my camping area, and isn't that special, so the city glow does add an interest.

ISO 200
28 mm
aperture 6.4

East looking star trail:

ISO 200
180mm
45 minutes
F7

I had to hike a bit to set this one up, so couldn't leave it set up as long.

All things Alpine

Real cool images- I like the rock in the second one- I've done a few images like this and the moonlight always seems to change the color a bit, but I think it should be that way, and looks great!

wondering how you did the processing for the second image- you mentioned you did it twice. I presume two different exposures etc, then blended in PS? I'm still learning PS, so was curious how you did that- select the mountain, feather it, then paste it over the mountains in the "star" version?

Thanks!
Erik

dls

Very nice. Like the effect on #2, with the tele and the straightening of the star trail arcs to make it look like pelting rain. I wonder what it would look like in a version with a darker sky?

JC

All things Alpine wrote:

Real cool images- I like the rock in the second one- I've done a few images like this and the moonlight always seems to change the color a bit, but I think it should be that way, and looks great!

wondering how you did the processing for the second image- you mentioned you did it twice. I presume two different exposures etc, then blended in PS? I'm still learning PS, so was curious how you did that- select the mountain, feather it, then paste it over the mountains in the "star" version?

Thanks!
Erik

Well, I use GIMP, not photoshop, but the workflow is similar. Output 2 jpgs or tiffs from UFraw. Open "as layers" in Gimp. Add alpha channels to the layers. I made the sky my top layer, so I selected and cut out most of the landscape, leaving just a band around the sky. Add a mask to the top sky layer, and use the mask to erase what is left of the sky-image landscape, switching the drawing tool to partial opacity to blend the exact edge. Then I despeckled the image to get rid of the 0 and 1 value black specks left by the noise reduction, then a slight gaussian blur to smooth out the trails without disappearing them.

here is the darker image- a lot of vignetting, I lose some sky trails.

astrostu

Okay, I think the mountain looks too green to me in the second shot of your first post. But that's me. Also, for me, I think that the sky is too bright. While I agree that sky is too dark in the original, I think you may've over-done bringing up the brightness. I would've played with the curves some more to bring down the sky brightness, but again, that's me.

schmoo

The opening shot is my favorite by far. It's perfect!

doctorsoup

Strong work!
I really like the first one, a beautiful minimalist image! The glow from Las Vegas works for me. Are you gonna try going north from LV sometime?
As others mentioned the color of the second shot seems off -- have you tried a B&W conversion?

kolibri wrote: »

My first attempt at star trails. Well, I practiced the first two nights, got it right the 3rd night out. Long exposures, noise cancellation setting. Next time I'll try stacking many short exposures to see what it does to the ambient sky light (this is ~100 miles south of Vegas, can't avoid the spillover if I want the enclosed circular trail, at this location). This one taken after the moon set, a couple of hours after the second image.



For this one, a single raw image, but processed it once for the stars, once for the landscape. Timed for the moon to set ~1/2 way through the exposure.

jackiejay

very pretty affect