CLEAR NIGHT STAR TRAILS

 Winter winter weather well under way, sleet snow and rain are the norm the past couple of weeks and possibly the next few weeks.

Some nights the sky has been clear with some twinkling stars visible amidst the city's light pollution.

Searching for stars in light polluiton

After a few days of rain and emergence of sub zero temperatures, the sky showed itself again after the bulk of the moisture laden clouds moved south. Though not completely clear of clouds here and there the constellations were visible amidst copious amounts of light pollution from the city. It's hard to run away from these when you shoot from inside the dome of light pollution. You can clearly see it reflected off the clouds.

Parts of Gemini (Pollux and Castor) and Auriga (bright Cappella)

The city south of Hinna onwards towards Jatta and through Gausel, Forus and into Sandness.

The constellation Leo (bright Regulus)

It's hard to attenuate the efffects of light pollution, filters take you to some distance towards the solution but not fully. The gradient character  of these extraneous man made abomination obscures the true light from the stars and steal the true colors of the night.

Imaging at Vaulen Beach

Vaulen Beach is located only a stone's throw away down the hill from the house. Popular with residents in the area during the warmer months, in winter only dogwalkers come aroudn to walk their charge during the day.

It has perfect view East and NorthEast however with the amount of light pollution from nearby houses and streetlights the location is not on the top spot of most nightstalkers. I have attempted shooting here a few times but always get frustrated with the excessive lights. Also being popular with dogs and their walkers during the day, walking around at night around here carry certain risks. I brought back dog poo into the garage on one occasion courtesy of the front tire of the car.

Looking Northeast.

Star Adventurer pointed East.

Radio tower across the fjord.

Foggy Nights Stars from Vaulen

It's been foggy the past week, which makes the surroundings errily strange and funky in someways. I have been meaning to capture streetlights in heavy fog one of these days but haven't quite managed to do so just yet. Took the opportunity yesterday to pop by Vaulen beach on the way home from the post office.

With almost clear sky higher up, the fog added quite a rather nice atmosphere to the captured images. Some of the heavy LP in the area seemed nicely muted by the thick fog. I might have to go back to take advantage of the fog these next few days.

Orion, single shot and stacked shot

Stacking fully aligned star shots is made possible with Star Adventurer. The unit with a camera sitting on top of it  follows the earth's rotation around the polar axis thus should eliminate the issue of star trails especially for long exposures. Multiple single shots exposure are taken over a certain time window, then these shots are stacked with a chosen stacking software. The reference standard software for stacking has always been the Deep Sky Stacker. DSS is available for free from the web. It has all the buttons you need for a successful stacking operation.

Since swapping laptop this year I'm no longer able to use some of my favorite softwares among them DSS and Photoshop. So now for a quick and dirty stacking I use Sequator which was recently made available by it's developer also free of charge. It is so much easier to use however with much less options for tweaking the stacking process.

One single shot at 15secs tracked.

A stacked of 12 tracked shots at 15sec each.

The view beneath that of Orion (stitched), light pollution is the bigger issue with astrophotography.

Milkyway from Sulaskard 2017 f/1.2 @ f/2.8 on Sony A7S, single shot tracked, minimum light pollution.

The main isssues with trying to image the night sky falls into two main categories. Those within a photographer's control: 

1) Aperture - wider aperture lets in more light, thus shorter exposure time, less noise, less trailing

2) Sensor size - larger sensor, less noise.
3) Earth's rotation - compensated for by star a tracking device, longer exposure, less need for widest aperture

And the issues outside of a photographer's control :

1) Weather - not much one can do other than more to Tenerife and pray for clear sky
2) Light pollution - seek dark sky (within our control to a certain measure)

A star tracker could possibly solve item 1 and 2 in one swipe, with the tracker you can probably get away with a crop camera, an f/4.5 lens and stacking combination. However the same combination with a fullframe camera and an f/1.2 lens would take your image that much further than a crop sensor  can.

It took me many years to progress from shooting stars and Milkyway with a crop sensor and f/4.5 lenses purely on a account of cost, and partly commitment. Then I saw a lot more of the sky when I moved to fullframe and f/1.2 (big glass) lenses. Then I bought the Skywatcher Star Adventurer, it took me about  a year before I actually dragged it out for a session with the Milkyway.

As for my night sky imaging, I can say that I'm working hard on the motivation and commitment on my part. Along the journey I've also picked up a couple of f/1.4 lenses as well as tripods.

The best I could do with a tripod, crop sensor Canon 40D and f/4.5 lens ... trying to capture fireflies and the stars at Sg Kadulit, Kuala Suai, near Miri, Sarawak. This was several years before Sony A7S!

An attempt at Milkyway (Sep 2011) with Canon 40D+Tokina 16-35/2.8: Iso1000, 30secs,f/2.8. I was shooting Jpeg, WB 5000.