Astro Photography Anyone?

[rahmonster]

Has anybody ever tried their hand at Star Trails? I have always wanted to give it a go but never have. I just found a good article about it here:http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/I06/I0601/I0601.HTM so if anyone has given it a go....did you succeed??

[aero-nut]

Has anybody ever tried their hand at Star Trails? I have always wanted to give it a go but never have. I just found a good article about it here:http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/I06/I0601/I0601.HTM so if anyone has given it a go....did you succeed??
Rahmonster,

Yeah, I've given it a go before. It can definately be tricky, but a lot of fun. I have tried many different settings for it, but basically, you want to have an exposure of about 10-15 minutes by using "Bulb mode" to get a really good star trail effect. As you can imagine, that means keeping your ISO fairly low, so you don't get a bunch of noise. Here's a couple examples of my feeble attempts:

http://aero-nut.smugmug.com/photos/9677058-L.jpg
(791 sec exposure, 200 ISO, f/5.6)


http://aero-nut.smugmug.com/photos/9677061-L.jpg
(776 sec exposure, 200 ISO, f/5.6)