Star trails and planets

Challenge #123 in the Eclectic series. Hosted by Ro13.

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Star trails and planets...with or without a telescope.

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Lake McKay sunrise

by slick479

1^st place

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Camera:	Nikon D7000
Lens:	Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR
Submitted:	Friday, 25th May, 2012 01:42 (GMT)
Taken:	Sunday, 20th May, 2012
Focal length:	20 mm
Shutter speed:	1/10 sec
Aperture:	F8
ISO:	400
Notes:
Views:	946
Galleries:	View this photo in slick479's gallery

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Entry comments

Total comments: 20

That's a great shot!

Would you perhaps have prints of this available for purchase?

Thanks

0 upvotes

Sure, what sort of size would you like? I could do an A4 for minimal cost...(NZ$20 + postage). Could look into prices for larger prints. Thanks

0 upvotes

A4 is fine. I can pay via paypal. Please write me direct: bluethermal ((AT)) gmail.com.

Thanks
A

0 upvotes

Nice, you shot this with the kit 18-55. Proof that lens is only as limited as the mind of the person using it. Well done. Congrats!

Comment edited 14 seconds after posting

0 upvotes

Thanks so much Mark, I keep hankering after a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 but I can't complain about the 18-55mm. Be interesting to see what a wider angle might get but they're not cheap!

0 upvotes

You have some sweet landscapes in your gallery, slick. I have the Tokina, love it a crazy good lens for the money, but not too often is there a landscape big enough to get the best out of it. Down there in NZ you definitlely have the wide open spaces to put it to good use. Looking forward to your future work!

0 upvotes

It can't be a 1/10 sec shoot, it could be minimum 30 min shoot... no?

0 upvotes

See my comment below for the shooting specs, I should have checked the info when I uploaded the pic sorry.

0 upvotes

Beautiful piece of work! Congratulations on a well deserved win. Just curious, what kind of no-talent trolls give an image of this quality and artistic expression a 1/2 or 1 star rating? Seems these types show up on many challenges... Oh well.

2 upvotes

Thanks a lot, I suppose if everyone liked the same things it would be a boring World...?

0 upvotes

Very pretty. Follows the current popular trend of merging sunrise/sunset shots with actual star trail shots. The zoom part is slightly unusual though.

0 upvotes

Magnificent !

As among other things, a serious amateur astronomer, let me say that this is the finest artistic star-trail photo I have ever had the pleasure of seeing.

Your remarkably creative technique and flawless (and painstaking) execution aside--
the result is nothing short of a triumph !

Congratulations on your first well-deserved win !
I, and I'm sure many others, await more to come.

PS
NZ, already high on my list of "must visits" just moved up !

1 upvote

Wow thanks Ben, appreciate your positive feedback, makes it worth trying these mad experiments! Good luck with getting to NZ it is an amazing place.

0 upvotes

Congratulations and thanks for your explanation. The information "Shutter Speed: 1/10 sec" can be confusing.

Well done!!!
:-)

0 upvotes

Many congratulations on the deserved prize in this contest. It is indeed an extraordinary work. Greetings from Portugal.

0 upvotes

My first winner!!!! Thanks all for your votes and kind comments, was worth the effort in the end.

0 upvotes

THank you for sharing the technique. I can tell you that this shot is amazing as it is! Very well thought of, and also I know how it feels like being alone on a cold trying to get that shot! So Cheers to you! Well done.

0 upvotes

Hi, can you give some more details on your shot please - I am intrigued, your stars appear to spiral inwards to the celestral pole, when normally they form circular paths about it. I'd really like to know more......

0 upvotes

Sure, I did this as an experiment... not sure I have the patience to do it again! I set the camera to automatically take a 30s exposure every 33s (this seemed to be the fastest time the camera could reliably repeat shots). Started with 18-55mm lens set at 18mm/f8. Between each pic I zoomed a tiny amount (I printed a 'protractor' type chart and mounted it to the camera and also a card arrow mounted to the lens zoom so I could try and keep a regular zoom amount on each exposure. It's winter down here (NZ) so nice dark skies but I was frozen by the time I finished. Landscape shot was actually taken from the same spot as the sun came up the next morning. I added the star reflections in PS, they rarely seem to show up in real life! You never know when you're suffering through these mad experiments that it's going to work, but I was pleased with this one, nearly worth the effort!

Comment edited 3 minutes after posting

7 upvotes

Oh Ace! makes perfect sense now - a great bit of experimenting - & it works, well done.

Over the past 18 months I have got 'into' astronomy, so I know what it is like to sit motionless all during the long winter nights (in the UK) - I think the worst I did was -9 with snow & ice covering the ground.

.......still, with the summer nights currently giving us only about 3 to 4 hours of 'real' darkness, I am looking forward to the longer nights of winter......just maybe not the cold so much ;-)

0 upvotes

Total comments: 20

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