Tag: stars

Stars

I took three pictures, all with different shutter times. The first one is kinda blah. The shutter was open for 11 seconds.

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The second pic has a 22 second exposure. This one is better if the goal is just seeing more stars.

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The third pic did what I was hoping it would do, but given that Methuen is the land of the light pollution the end result is a sad mess. I wanted the stars to trail, which they did, but I also wanted the background to stay black, which it definitely did not.

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So the next time I try this out I will have to do it in a place with little or no light pollution. Yeah, like that’s happening around these parts. Road trip!

The Question

It’s quarter to 10pm. The question before me is this:

Do I hang out for an hour or so and then go outside in the dark and take a couple of long exposures of the sky to see how they’ll turn out, or do I go to bed.

Ask me again in an hour.

Stars

I did manage to sneak outside last night to watch for meteors. I saw one, clear as can be. I was in the back yard sort of facing South, I guess. Maybe more like Southish. I don’t have much in terms of a sense of direction, you know? Anyway, I saw one just along the tree line. It lit up nicely and moved for a nice distance. I was pleased.

I was less pleased with my camera luck. I took a bunch of 30 second shots in the hopes that I’d get lucky and catch something streaking over head. I didn’t. I brought a table outside with me, focused the camera on a street light down the road, and placed the camera on it’s back, facing straight up. I used the 10 second timer, and set the exposure time for 30 seconds. I was surprised by the pictures as it looks like the stars moved a little. There were trails. I know that happens for long exposures, but I didn’t think 30 seconds was long enough. Either the camera moved a little or I had some wrong information. I’ll have to do a little more research before I try something like that again.

Here’s what I’m talking about…

If you click on a picture it will take you to Flickr. You can see larger versions of each pic there.
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Did those stars trail because of something I did, or because of something they did. Is 30 seconds too long?