My first startrail - Dunnottar Castle and Orion

[Kenny]

An evening out in subzero temperatures near Stonehaven, Scotland. This is one of the outputs, the last before I packed my bags. 21 x 30 sec exposures at 21mm, f/5, ISO-1600 combined in Startrails and foreground lightened in LightZone. I'm chuffed by this first attempt. Still lots to learn. May many more follow.

[Carole]

Well done Kenny.  Could possibly could leave out the one with the plane trail.

Carole

[Kenny]

Thanks. Might give that a go today. Unfortunately, I think there were at least 3 or 4 shots with planes in.

[Kenny]

6 / 21 frames had planes flying through, 4 in a consecutive sequence! It didn't look right removing them - looked like a hiden message from an episode of Morse.

I'm happy to try again (after the flights have stopped!) now that I've successfully done this first experimental sequence.

[Carole]

OK, I thought it might have been just one frame for the top right plane trail.

Carole

[Kenny]

You are right Carole. The top right one was one frame.

[Carole]

It wouldn't hurt to leave one frame out then, the ones at the bottom are less intrusive.

Carole

[Kenny]

Tada! Thanks for the suggestion.

[Carole]

Yup, like that better.

Carole

[Mac]

How about stacking the stars and then masking out the castle at the bottom and then pasting a single shot of the castle.
That way you will get the castle with the stars as a background.

Just guessing but i bet you have long exposure noise reduction switched on in your camera?

Mac

[Kenny]

Yes. I would love to do that... but I don't know how. Tips? I'd like to do the same with my War Memorial startrail photo.

Also, 30 sec exposures so the stars would be elongated.

p.s. yes, long exposure noise reduction and high iso noise reduction are enabled.

[Kenny]

Here is one of the single exposures I took at 13 seconds, 21mm, f/5, ISO-1600. I have 5 of these shots which could be stacked.

The startrail photo above was taken using 20-21 x 30 second exposures.

[Mac]

p.s. yes, long exposure noise reduction and high iso noise reduction are enabled.

Ahh TURN IT OFF.
turn off your auto long exposure noise reduction, and just take the normal 30s shots,
Then when you are finished, cover the lens and take a few more 30's second shots, these become your darks.

To get the star's to align use registax or Deep sky staker to stack the images, this will produce one photo with the stars all aligned, and hopefully the planes removed,
but the castle will be blured as that has moved during each frame.

Then take one of the photos with the castle static and use photo shop to combine the two images so that the stars sits over the castle.

Mac.

[Whitters]

Nice shot, I love star trails. One thing to try is for the last four or five shots slowly de-focus the lens, sounds weird but it really brings out the colours of the stars.

[Kenny]

p.s. yes, long exposure noise reduction and high iso noise reduction are enabled.

Ahh TURN IT OFF.

Thanks Mac. I've done a tutorial re calibration frames so have been using darks, flats and bias frames with the 'lights'. Registax can't seem to handle stacking single frames on my pc so I have been using DSS and, as you say, it leaves a blurred foreground because of the movement.

Still not clear how to clean that up because the blurred foreground is larger (due to the blurring) than the sharp foreground. Also, I presume I need to select the single frame that has the stars in the same position as the stacked frame, then add that as a layer? Or are you selecting/cropping and copy/pasting the foreground only? I don't have Photoshop so can't use that to make a foreground mask.

p.s. noted re long exposure noise reduction. Thanks.

Nice shot, I love star trails. One thing to try is for the last four or five shots slowly de-focus the lens, sounds weird but it really brings out the colours of the stars.

Thanks Paul - will definitely give that a go.