Album Night Shots and Star Trails

Just got back from a week long celebration of my parents' 50th anniversary. We spent it at a cabin in San Pete county UT. Not backcountry, but it was not city life either.
This was the view last night before I climbed into a hammock to have a little last enjoyment of the cooler air. Heading back the same direction tomorrow for a weekend at Scofield so the kids can get their fill of catching chubs, fireworks and heat exhaustion.

Shot this without a tripod on a table. I will heft the tripod for a couple shots into the backcountry... but left it behind when it would have been useful.

Parents 50th 20170445-mnr.jpg
 
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I got to check out a new potential "dark site" this past Monday out in the Pawnee Grasslands. Between the blowing dust, humidity , and smoke from the Utah fire, things weren't that dark, but I did come away with this, using my 85mm lens and Nikon D5300.

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SwimsWithTrout said:
I got to check out a new potential "dark site" this past Monday out in the Pawnee Grasslands. Between the blowing dust, humidity , and smoke from the Utah fire, things weren't that dark, but I did come away with this, using my 85mm lens and Nikon D5300.

35639557985_77688f58cc_h.jpg
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Do you have a tracker? Or did you stack a bunch of short exposures? More process details please :)
 
SwimsWithTrout said:
Yes, I used my old iOptron SkyTracker. Nikon D5300(a), Samyang 85mm lens @ f4, ISO 800, 85 x 75", stacked with DSS and PP'd with PS.
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Thanks, that might just be a xmas present for myself :)
 
OK, so I've never really tried this before, but on Monday my kids were playing with sparklers and I thought I'd give it a shot. This was a 2 second exposure. I am a total rookie at this, but hoping to experiment this summer with some backcountry stuff now that I know how to change the settings on my camera:

IMG_2715.JPG
 
Whenever we have night sky programs at the park I try to experiment and learn more about photographing the night. I thought this last one would be a dud with a good bit of cloud cover, but at the very end there were some clouds lit up in a way by the Milky Way that were downright neat, so I tried my hand. I made a timelapse that went on the park's facebook page but even the single shots were neat.
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Would like a dedicated night sky lens, maybe a prime for a full-frame camera. Any thoughts?
 
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Still trying to figure out astrophotography, I thought I had a dark site in the middle of the Daniel Boone National Forest, but not so much

16x20"
astro1.JPG


Also experimented with a smaller field of view (48mm on a crop sensor) pointed at a random part of the sky. Next time I will have to point at a more specific point and figure out the blurring on the edges.
35x8" stacked with DSS
astro34stacked.JPG
 
wsp_scott said:
Still trying to figure out astrophotography, I thought I had a dark site in the middle of the Daniel Boone National Forest, but not so much

16x20"
astro1.JPG
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This first picture looks almost like you had a moon in your sky! Where is all the foreground light coming from?
 
Scott Chandler said:
This first picture looks almost like you had a moon in your sky! Where is all the foreground light coming from?
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There is a small marina around the corner. I'm sure some of the light is coming from there. But, I have other night shots from a different trip that have almost the same glowing reflection on the water. I think a lot of it is just reflected sky glow.
 
Out trying some night pictures. Both of these are from Schramm State Park in Nebraska. The first is looking out over the Platte River. The glow on the horizon is from Lincoln about 30 miles away. I was trying some light painting on the second picture. Both exposures were 30 seconds.
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