Starstruck

A few weeks ago I went on a short holiday to Yorke Peninsula.

While there I had the perfect opportunity to do my first star trail. During the first few days we had very strong winds but on the night I took the star trail it was perfectly calm. There was only the occasional wispy cloud in the sky and the almost full moon was high in the sky and shining down on the old truck that was my foreground subject.

The south celestial pole just happened to be right behind the truck - I couldn't have asked for more.

I did try lighting the truck with a torch but the moonlight was sufficient and looked far more natural.

The photo is made up of 123 shots, each 30sec exposures, taken @ 2 sec intervals. These were then stacked in the   Star Trail   program to create the movement of the stars over the hour the shots were taken.



Starstruck

 

 

The Star Trail program was very easy to use and allows you to watch the final picture being built which means you see the trails being formed.

Thanks for visiting

Kathy

Phil Hart wins award

Congratulations to Phil Hart for winning the top prize in the David Malin Awards for his photo, Melbourne Moon, presented at Parkes Radio Telescope, Dubbo, NSW.

The photo is of the moon rising over the Melbourne dockyards and was taken to illustrate his ebook, Shooting Stars.

The photo and details can be seen HERE

Shooting Stars

Shooting stars is not something I have attempted much in the past but this time of year in our southern skies is a great time to capture the milky way and southern cross very high across our skies.

Well I've been waiting for a time when I can get out into the country away from city lights to try it out but the weather hasn't been very cooperative. The other night I noticed we had a perfectly clear sky so urban lights and all I decided to give it a go. I was amazed at how many stars I could capture even with street lights so close.

Here is the sky taken from my yard a few nights ago. Not brilliant I know but I can't wait now to go further out away from the city lights.

Click to view larger.

Canon 7D, 10mm, f3.5, 30", iso 800.

I have really been inspired by Phil Hart's book "Shooting Stars" which is an excellent resource in which Phil shares his knowledge on how, when and where to capture our skies. 

See link to Phil's ebook on sidebar.


Thanks for visiting,

Kathy

Super Moon Timelapse

Timelapse photography has always amazed me and I have wanted to try it myself for a long time. Finally I have bought myself a timer/intervalometer (Canon TC-80N3) and have been learning the basics.

Last night I decided to try it out on the Super Moon. I set up the camera and tripod on my verandah to capture the moon as it rose in the east and as a bonus there was cloud moving across the moon in the opposite direction.

Details:

529 still frames
captured at 2 sec intervals

Canon 7D manually set to f4, 1/250s, ISO 100, 235mm, manual focus, manual WB (cloud)

Processed in Lightroom and created into video at 24fps (preset downloaded from  http://lrtimelapse.com/download/ )

17 mins of capture becomes 21 sec of video.

Viewed full screen it's not as smooth as I thought it would be for 2sec intervals, I might try another one at 1sec intervals and see how that goes.

Can't wait to try it out at some interesting locations.

Thanks for visiting,

Feedback more than welcome.

Kathy