Star Trails & the ISS!

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Soldato
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Looks great to me, shame about all the light pollution. You've got pretty good results despite that!

Do you know which trail is which?
 
One which is pretty much in the centre is the ISS. Everything else apart from that very short, very bright thing at the top leftish is aircraft.

The very bright, short thing is either an iridium satellite flare or something burning up in the atmosphere, probably the latter as I can't find anything that passed over Bristol at that time which would be above a zero magnitude (about 22:51:30 to 22:52:30 if anyone cares to find out!)
 
Sorry, I'm confused!:p

The ISS is very bright (it can easily be mistaken for a plane at high altitude) so i'd expect it to be a lot brighter than the line that fades in and out in the centre of the image, you sure it's not the bright line on the right and side? Also the very bright thing, which is that? The thing going off the image on the top right? Sure that's not a plane?

Either way it's nice, I like the distortion wide has done to the stars.:)
 
nice :)

I would be interested to see what settings you used and how you prepared for this.

Am in the backend of nowhere in a week or so and fancy giving this a try myself!
 
Amp34 said:
Sorry, I'm confused!:p

The ISS is very bright (it can easily be mistaken for a plane at high altitude) so i'd expect it to be a lot brighter than the line that fades in and out in the centre of the image, you sure it's not the bright line on the right and side? Also the very bright thing, which is that? The thing going off the image on the top right? Sure that's not a plane?

Either way it's nice, I like the distortion wide has done to the stars.:)
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The ISS *IS* the middle of the photo, it was a -1.something mag pass and therefore it fades in as it comes up from the horizon and then fades out when the earth gets in the way. Plus the fact the composite images show the pass at the right time and I was watching it :p

Im expecting two passes today, one at 21:27 and one at 23:01.

What the very bright thing is I have no idea. It's around for one photo only which is one minute. The plane trails cover two and sometimes three minutes of photos.


Phate said:
Whats the markings at the top centre of the image?
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The dots? They are aircraft nav light flashes.



drunken fool said:
nice :)

I would be interested to see what settings you used and how you prepared for this.

Am in the backend of nowhere in a week or so and fancy giving this a try myself!
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40D + 10-22

@ ISO400, F3.5. Exposure time is as long as you can get without clipping (i.e. when the camera thinks that pixel is just white!)

Best results are to leave it as long as possible, careful not to move it.

I'm just waiting for the sun to go down so the shutter speed drops to 30 seconds (currently ~10 seconds).

Hope that explains it.
 
I might have a crack at this when I go to my other house as it's pitch black compared to here in Bristol.

I have a 450D, with a nifty fifty 1.8, Canon 18-55mm IS 3.5-5.6 kit lens and a Tamron 28-200 3.8-5.6. Would I be better off with the 18-55mm as it's wider, or the 50mm as it's faster?
 
dannyjo22 said:
For those interested in settings this is a very good write up :)

http://wildaboutlife.net/wp/archives/146

or this thread on TP

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=218447&highlight=infinity

:)
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Glad to see someone found it useful. :)

Concorde Rules said:
The ISS *IS* the middle of the photo, it was a -1.something mag pass and therefore it fades in as it comes up from the horizon and then fades out when the earth gets in the way. Plus the fact the composite images show the pass at the right time and I was watching it :p

Im expecting two passes today, one at 21:27 and one at 23:01.

What the very bright thing is I have no idea. It's around for one photo only which is one minute. The plane trails cover two and sometimes three minutes of photos.
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Ahh ok, never actually captured the ISS on camera but have seen it a few times with the Mk1 eyeball and didn't realise it vanished like that.:D

Hmm, I was thinking of going out in a minute to get a few shots (reinspired by the two threads here...) and I'll check the ISS is visible then :D
 
I'm a tit... Just set the camera up in time to see of I could catch the ISS and realised id set it up the wrong way... East instead of West (I even worked out "west")... Ah well its a bit hazy tonight anyway. I'll try again tomorrow as well as tonights shots when I finish them .
 
Didn't go too well last night unfortunately!


22nd April 2011-Edit.jpg by ConcordeR, on Flickr


Video of it instead:

Need to do it somewhere nice!

Tips for others:

I initially had it at 15 seconds, then 30 seconds exposure. This just used up space without any real benefit.

One minute seems to be the best for noise ratio/space (I shoot RAW) so start as soon as the sky stops clipping at one second exposures!!


PistolPete said:
I might have a crack at this when I go to my other house as it's pitch black compared to here in Bristol.

I have a 450D, with a nifty fifty 1.8, Canon 18-55mm IS 3.5-5.6 kit lens and a Tamron 28-200 3.8-5.6. Would I be better off with the 18-55mm as it's wider, or the 50mm as it's faster?
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Wider IMO.
 
What is that wobbly line going across?

I think exposure length should be mainly governed by sky exposure (so set exposure length for the sky). I went a bit mental last night... I shot 8 second exposures... for a couple of reasons; 1, because I was shooting a bright building at ISO400 and 2, because I want to see if I can make a reasonable short video of the hour. That does mean I have just set my machine to the task of processing around 500 RAW files... Luckily I'm going out now so hopefully it will be finished by tonight...:D
 
Amp34 said:
What is that wobbly line going across?

I think exposure length should be mainly governed by sky exposure (so set exposure length for the sky). I went a bit mental last night... I shot 8 second exposures... for a couple of reasons; 1, because I was shooting a bright building at ISO400 and 2, because I want to see if I can make a reasonable short video of the hour. That does mean I have just set my machine to the task of processing around 500 RAW files... Luckily I'm going out now so hopefully it will be finished by tonight...:D
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Wobbly line is one of those candle lantern things!

Last night took up 8 Gb as it is :eek:
 
Btw you can get filters to block the sodium wave length. I use a Baader light pollution filter which filters out the narrow sodium wave length. Will help reduce the light.

The wobbly looks like a plane taking off. The thin sharp trails will be satellites - very annoying when your lovely 5 minute exposures have trails right through them!

You could probably make a gradient of the orange colour in PS then subtract it from the images to reduce the orange too.
 
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