Star Trail Photography

Photographing star trails if a fun and different subject to photograph.

Although its hard to notice it, due to the rotation of the Earth the stars we see at night slowly make there way across the sky generally to the west. The stars rotate around the north and south celestial pole. Stars that are very close to one of these poles tend to move very slowly, but thous that are closer to the equatorial plane, move a lot faster. If your located in the norther hemisphere then you can only see the north celestial pole, like wise if your in the southern hemisphere you can see the southern celestial pole.

Locating the celestial poles

To locate the north celestial pole you will need to locate the Polaris star. If your aware of were the little dipper is located, the Polaris star is located at the end of it handle.

The south celestial pole is a little trickier to find, the way I would find it is buy using the southern cross and its two pointer stars. I would draw a line going down the Y axis of the southern cross, at the same time I would draw a line from in-between the two pointer stars, and were the two lines crossed is more or less were the south celestial pole is.

Now I know your thinking, “what the hell is this guy talking about” Its hard to describe were to find these poles so here is a wiki link with pictures that will help.

Lets start shooting!

You will need, a sturdy tripod and a camera with a bulb setting and preferably a cable or remote shutter release. You will need to set up your camera and point it at the location of the sky you want to photograph. Exposures for star trails can be any were from ten minutes to over three hours. watch your battery life, long exposures tend to drain batteries fast.

Once you get the feel of how the stars move through the sky you can look for a foreground object to include in your photo (such as a house, tree or whatever) if there is enough light from the moon your subject might just be lit up after you take your long exposure, otherwise use your flashes rear flash sync setting to light up the foreground at the very end of your exposure.

Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_pole for more information about the celestial poles and how to find them.

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