Star trails how long

I see two enemies fighting to reach the sensor of my camera: the stars and the light pollution creators — the city lights. Apart from this, the image gives me a clue of how beautiful the stars would have looked in this place before all these human interferences. I used a 2-stop soft graduated neutral density filter GND placing using its darker area to dim the city lights. So I got a longer exposure without overexposing the artificial lights on the foreground.

In the image above you can see the ruins of an ancient military base. It's located in the fortress of La Mola, in Menorca. Including a vertical and isolated subject in the foreground makes the image more intriguing, more hypnotic. Look for a tree, a rock, a lighthouse Look for amazing subjects, include them in your foregrounds and you'll create dazzling Star Trails images.

But be careful, because it can be extremely dangerous! It's a little bit more challenging, but it pays off the effort. Create one, and you'll become addicted Human figures allow you to create very appealing images by playing with many different compositions. You can produce the vortex Star Trails at home, editing a single shot, or in the field, using a motorized system to smoothly change the focal length while the shutter is open. You can learn how to do it reading section By progressively defocusing the stars during a single long exposure or after each exposure image stacking , you'll create what's called the "comet effect" or "badmington shuttlecock effect".

All you have to do is to rotate the focus ring of your lens a few degrees to pull the depth of field far limit away from infinity.

Do it after each exposure if you're using the stacking technique. Or at a 1-minute interval if you're shooting a single long exposure. If you believe that creating a Star Trails image is fun, you're going to love creating your own Star Trails timelapses.

Instead of staking all the photos to produce one single image, just turn them into a video. And show the world the stars in motion. I've only seen 20 inspiring images, and you said you would give me 21! I think it's funnnier if you suggest the 21st inspiring image in the comments section, right at the end of this guide :. And if you'd like to improve your Star Trails photography face to face with the whole PhotoPills team and a bunch of PhotoPills Masters, you should definitely attend the PhotoPills Camp!

PhotoPillers from all over the world join us, the creators of PhotoPills app, along with a squad of easy going Photography Masters like Mark Gee, Elia Locardi and more in a 7-day exclusive photo immersion in the beautiful island of Menorca, a nature sanctuary! Then, you should read more about the PhotoPills Camp. I took it from a surprising book. I'm always looking for all sort of inspiration sources, anything that can help me see the world from a different perspective, from a different point of view.

Anything that can get me out of my comfort zone. I usually find inspiration in photos, films, music, books All sort of books, not only in photography books. From time to time, I come across a book that's a game changer for me. Similarly, you cannot become a master at innovating original solutions without first learning to exercise your creative muscles as well. If you do train, if you do face this challenge, you'll find the key to making your photography more innovative, fresh, original and joyful.

In other words, get used to think big first, believe in the impossible, don't put a limit to your imagination. Take advantage of the power to foresee the future that PhotoPills provides. Take advantage of the power to compose with natural light , the Sun , the Moon , the Milky Way , the stars It might seem like an impossible scene to capture.

But don't give up, use your knowledge, plan it with PhotoPills , figure out when it happens, and use your equipment and your photography skills to make it real. If you're starting, the photo may not be exactly the one you dreamed due to equipment limitations, lack of skills, weather conditions, or even the Laws of Physics.

But it'll be innovative and original. And if you're not happy with the result, repeat the process. Iterate, try it again until you get what you want.

You need to empty your brain, give space to your imagination, and erase your limiting beliefs before you can come up with original ideas. Before you can go to a powerful location and start brainstorming like crazy, there are 6 key facts you should know about Star Trails.

What you're about to learn now will help you put your imagination to work in the right direction. So you can come up with original ideas for your Star Trails shots much faster. Star Trails photography is all about capturing the apparent motion of the stars caused by the rotation of the Earth. The longer the exposure time 15min, 1h, 2h, 5h The Earth rotates once every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds around the imaginary line or axis that connects the North Pole with the South Pole.

Thus, the North and South poles are the points in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets the Earth's surface. As you'll learn in the next section, being able to locate the north celestial pole Northern Hemisphere , the south celestial pole Southern Hemisphere and the celestial equator is key in Star Trails photography. Because it gives you the power to decide where to aim your camera to get the Star Trails pattern you want in your photos. Therefore, it's essential you understand what they are, how to find them in the sky and how you can take advantage of them as a compositional tool in your Star Trails images.

Of course, if you're not an astronomy master, you can always use the PhotoPills Night Augmented Reality view to easily locate all these astronomical elements in the sky watch the video in section 5.

This simplifies all the planning work a lot. In astronomy, the celestial sphere is defined as an imaginary sphere concentric with the Earth. It's what astronomers use to plot or project stars, planets and other objects in the sky. As seen from the Northern Hemisphere, it's the imaginary point in the sky where the Earth's axis of rotation intersects the celestial sphere.

The north celestial pole is so close to the Polaris north star that, in practice, you can locate it by finding the Polaris. So include it in your frame and you'll capture a circumpolar Star Trails pattern stars turning around it. As seen from the Southern Hemisphere, it's the imaginary point in the sky where the Earth's axis of rotation intersects the celestial sphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, there is no Polaris to help you locate the position of the south celestial pole.

Trace an imaginary line from Gacrux to Acrux. Then, a second line constructed perpendicularly between Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri. Their crossing point marks the south celestial pole. Therefore, if you live in the Southern Hemisphere, you can include it in your frame to capture a circumpolar Star Trails pattern. It's the circumference that results from the intersection between the celestial sphere and the plane that contains the Earth's Equator.

Simply aim your camera towards the east or the west to capture it. You'll see that stars "move" in three different directions. Along the celestial equator, Stars Trails form a very straight line. While, on both sides of it, stars appear to curve away towards the north and south celestial poles. When you capture these stars in a Star Trails image, they seem to draw a circle around the Polaris Northern Hemisphere and the south celestial pole Southern Hemisphere. Now you have all the astronomical knowledge required in Star Trails photography.

It's time to take advantage of it. In other words, given a location and a subject, you can choose the shooting spot and shooting direction based on the Star Trails shape you need to tell the story you want. Depending on the direction you're aiming your camera, you'll get all these different Star Trails patterns.

From Equatorial latitudes, the north and south celestial poles seem to be very close to the horizon. So, if you live on the Earth's equator, you can create stunning images capturing half of the circles described by the stars.

Well, for a given shooting spot and shooting direction, it allows me to perfectly visualize the Star Trails pattern I'll get relative to my subject. This way, you can easily choose the shooting spot and shooting direction for the composition you like the most.

All you have to do is go where your subject is, take your smartphone, point it at the sky and use PhotoPills to plan the shot. And if you're at home, comfortably sitting on your couch, you can set a different location let's say Hawaii and see the Star Trails options you'll have. So, as you reach a more advanced level, you can plan your shots before actually being in the location.

In section 5 you'll learn how you can use PhotoPills to easily plan your Star Trails ideas, no matter where you are on Earth! This is just my personal approach. I don't really like Star Trails images with short trails a total exposure of just a few minutes unless it's the only option I have. When am I forced to capture short Star Trails?

It happens when you're shooting one single long exposure one single shot of several minutes or hours while the Moon is present or when you're under light pollution conditions. In this case, if you want to get an image correctly exposed in one single shot , you won't be able to use a very slow shutter speed or long exposure time. If you do so, you'll get an overexposed image. The good news is that you can easily overcome this limitation by shooting multiple shorter exposures and stacking them in post-processing.

Since the Earth rotates around its axis, for a given exposure time, stars that are closer to the celestial poles will produce shorter trails. For example, the Polaris, which is very close to the north celestial pole, seems not moving at all. On the contrary, stars that are closer to the celestial equator will produce longer trails. The longest ones are the trails produced by the stars on the celestial equator. Therefore, depending on the area of the sky you're capturing in your frame, the trails will be longer or shorter.

This explains why, when shooting the Milky Way i. Because these stars require more time to leave a trail. On the contrary, including stars that are on the celestial equator will force you to use shorter exposure times to capture stars as big bright spots i. Because the stars on the celestial equator are the fastest ones.

As you see in the animated image above, the longer the total exposure time, the longer the trails. I'm using the concept of total exposure time because, as you'll see in next section, you can create Star Trails images by shooting a single long exposure or by stacking several short exposures in post-processing image stacking. In this second case, the total exposure time results from the addition of the exposure time of each photo. There is no much more to say here.

If you want long Star Trails, go for longer total exposure times. If you want to know, for a given exposure time, how a circumpolar image will look like, you can take advantage of the PhotoPills Star Trails calculator.

Have a look at the two screenshots. The first one is showing you a Star Trails simulation for a 1-hour exposure time. And the second one for a 2-hour exposure time. The PhotoPills Star Trails calculator is also very useful when you wish to estimate the total exposure time of an existing circumpolar image. Let's imagine you find a really nice circumpolar image on our Instagram account follow us! Well, all you have to do is to use Photoshop to measure the rotation angle of one star around the Polaris or the south celestial pole.

In my opinion, longer trails produce more hypnotic images. So get ready to spend the whole night under the stars. The only situation is if you're shooting one long exposure under light pollution or Moonlight conditions. In this case, you're forced to use a shorter exposure time to get a photo well exposed. My goal with this guide is to help you learn how to shoot both single and multiple exposures Star Trails, no matter the equipment you have.

But, I must admit that I prefer shooting multiple exposures and stacking them using a special software. Since you're shooting multiple short exposures, you have a better control of the sensor heat.

So, your images end up with less noise. This allows you to shoot longer Star Trails with almost any camera. On the contrary, your image surely has a lot of noise when shooting one very long exposure with a low-end or mid-range camera. The workaround here is to limit the total exposure time. But, if you do so, you get shorter Star Trails too.

On the other hand, when shooting multiple exposures, you have more control over all these problems. If you're shooting a single long exposure, at the end of the shooting, you'll only have one image. Shooting multiple exposures allows you to capture multiple images that can be used separately or together to create other stunning effects like timelapse videos. Furthermore, as you'll be stacking the number of photos you want, you can decide in post-processing the length of the Star Trails you want.

A great example of a high productive night is when you're shooting Meteor Showers. For example, shooting multiple exposures during the Geminids Meteor Shower allowed me to produce a great number of images and videos.

First, I got a great number of photos that could be used alone. Imagine that you capture a nice Meteor Shower and you want to share the image separately. You wouldn't be able to do it if you shoot a single exposure. During a Meteor Shower, all meteors radiate from one single spot in the sky. This spot is called the radiant. Knowing that, you can use a special post-processing technique to put together the following image.

Notice that all the meteors appear to converge from one single spot the radiant. You can learn how to create this stunning effect by using the technique described in the Perseids Meteor Shower Photography Masterclass with Ian Norman. Finally, you can also produce a timelapse showing how Star Trails grow as Earth rotates. I show you how to do it in section 11 ;. The presence of the Moon is a problem when shooting a single exposure Star Trails. The Moonlight will probably over lit the foreground, getting an overexposed image.

This puts a limit to the exposure time producing shorter Star Trails in the image. And, thus, what I believe will be a less powerful image. With multiple exposures the Moon is not a problem.

All you have to do is to take into account the Moonlight when exposing. If you want to have Moonlight in the scene to lit the foreground, plan it well.

Or even Full Moon if you dare! The lower the Moon, the better because you'll get longer and more dramatic shadows on the foreground. Moreover, it's important to plan for a Moon that is perpendicular to the shooting direction.

In other words, you should look for some kind of side lighting. This way, the foreground will have more texture and volume. And, if you're up for a challenge, you could even include the Moon in the frame to create a stunning Moon trail. I'll be thrilled if, after reading this guide, you're capable of capturing the real color of the stars in your Star Trails.

It would mean that you've reached the next level. Your Star Trails images will look much more dramatic and hypnotic.

And this, my friend, is one of my main goals with this guide. Although, stars seem to be white at first glance, the truth is that they cover a large range of colors: white, red, gold, blue If your want is to keep the true color of the scene foreground, stars, etc. For example, when you're editing a Milky Way picture , if Antares is white instead of its red natural color, you're doing something wrong.

You're not getting the natural look of the Milky Way. Tweak your post-processing settings to give Antares its red hue. This will result into a more realistic image :. However, when you're shooting the Milky Way and there is light pollution in the scene, it will be almost impossible to give Antares its red color. In this case, try at least to give it a touch of its red hue. I use this trick everytime I edit the Milky Way and I recommend you to do the same. But, photography is a form of art, so there is nothing wrong in showing your creativity and adjust the white balance at your will.

In this section, you've learnt the key astronomy elements celestial poles and celestial equator , how to find them and all the possible Star Trail patterns you can capture. Now you have the power to choose the right shooting spot and shooting direction that give you the Star Trails pattern you need to tell the story you want. But Star Trails provide only half of the action captured in the image. The other half is happening in the foreground. In conclusion, you need to combine a fantastic Star Trails pattern with a powerful location An award-winning one!

But, images that only show the trails of the stars look all the same. They are pretty boring images. And you want the opposite. It's the foreground that makes the difference. Include a powerful foreground and you'll go from boring people to win hearts and minds.

It's that simple! Even though you can take Star Trails images under light pollution, it's not ideal to capture a great number of stars and their natural color. Light pollution works against your interests. The extra artificial light from the cities washes out the color of the stars and also reduce their number.

And you don't want that. So, take your car or a plane and escape from the city. Go to a location where it's pitch black. There are many online sources to help you find a nearby light pollution free location. These are just a few I like:. You find your dark sky. So you don't think it twice.

You get in the car and drive for a couple of hours while the Sun is setting. Finally, you're there, in the field, under a pitch black sky. And you're about to shoot a great Star Trails. When the Sun is up and the light is harsh, do your scouting work. Find your foregrounds and your main subjects. Come up with ideas and plan every detail. Find the shooting spot and shooting direction that gives you the Star Trails pattern you want.

I even recommend you to take your camera out and try different framings until you get what you want. Then, come back at night. Set the tripod at the planned spot, aim the camera to the planned direction, and start shooting a truly hypnotic Star Trails.

You don't have to create a gazillion Star Trails images. You only need to make one: the good one. Therefore, spend as much time as necessary imagining and planning. You need to make it really unique. Jokes aside, finding a beautiful foreground that includes a powerful subject will surely rise the interest of the viewer. So, when scouting a location looking for foregrounds, I'm always looking for interesting subjects.

Subjects that inspire me. Great subjects are lighthouses, trees, rocks, natural arches, buildings, abandoned vehicles and windmills The options are endless! From giving a sense of scale, conveying a sense of movement and showing context, to building a more interesting story Sometimes, when your foreground is not great, including a person can save the image. It's the simplest way to add interest to a boring scene. Use converging lines, curved lines or a simple straight line to lead the viewer to the most important point of the image the focal point , whether it is your subject, the Polaris or south celestial pole or the celestial equator.

Using triangles is another great way to improve your images. When you're in the field, pay attention to rocks, trees, and other structures that alone or combined have a form of a triangle. If you include a triangle that points up, you'll convey a sense of stability to the viewer. And when the triangle points down, you'll convey the opposite: a lack of balance. There are places that have a magic atmosphere. You feel it as soon as you step out of the car.

The air feels simply different I'm talking about places like cemeteries , battlefields , ghost towns , volcanos , craters , deserts , and old buildings. Now that you've found a great location with a very nice foreground, ideas start to flow in your head.

No matter whether you're planning some Star Trails, the Milky Way , the Moon , Meteor Showers , the Sun , lunar eclipses or simply the natural light :. The plan is the bridge between the kingdom of dreams the land of Oz and planet Earth, your reality. If you're a beginner, I'd still recommend to start planning your Star Trail shots with no Moon. And once you nail your shots, go one step further and try to include Moonlight in the foreground, or even the Moon in the frame Moon trail.

As I mentioned in section 3 , if there is Moon , it's much easier to get great results by using the image stacking technique. Shooting multiple shorter exposures gives you the absolute control over light and, thus, exposure. I prefer using the Planner because it shows me all the information I need in one single screen: Moon phase, Moon elevation and Moon direction on a map.

Imagine you've already decided the location you want to go and a few good ideas start coming to your mind This is my personal choice, along with the rest of the PhotoPills team. We love putting all our ideas on paper in the first place, before start planning. In this case, our powerful location was the beautiful beach of Cala Pregonda , in Menorca Spain. A truly unique place. Drawing a draft will help you ask the right questions, so you can use PhotoPills to figure out the right answers.

In the following video you'll learn how to use PhotoPills to quickly plan any Star Trails photo you imagine, no matter where you are in the world. Check our YouTube channel for more cool planning examples and videos on how to master PhotoPills! But, if you need further explanations, here is a brief description of the exact workflow I followed to plan the Geminids Star Trails image.

If you're getting started in Star Trails photography, I strongly recommend you to plan your shots in the field, in situ. Simply go to the location, choose your shooting spot and use PhotoPills.

Both the Planner and the Night Augmented Reality view help you to easily visualize all the possible compositions and Star Trails patterns you have. If you don't like what you see, change the shooting spot and repeat the process.

Simply iterate until you find what you want. Slowly, as you shoot more and more Star Trails, you'll gain the skills to plan your images from home. But for now, the best thing you can do is to plan your shots out there, in the field. Open PhotoPills and tap on Planner Pills menu. And then, tap on the GPS button the first button on the left-hand side.

The Red Pin will automatically relocate to where you are. Once you've placed the Red Pin right where you are i. Check our Meteor Showers guide to find when the Geminids' peak is happening.

This is the night of maximum intensity, when it is possible to capture lots of meteors. In , the peak of the Geminids happened during the night between December 13 and 14th. So, set the date to December 14 and the time at am. We spent 5 hours capturing Meteors and Star Trails. Panel 4 is telling you that the Moon rose at am, so there was no Moon to worry about during the night.

Besides, the picture of the Moon you see on the same panel indicates that the Moon was very thin. In addition to this, and as a curiosity, Panel 3 is giving you the exact Moon phase percentage: 7. You're on the shooting spot and the date have been set on the Planner. Now set the time to the end of the astronomical twilight. The power of the PhotoPills Night Augmented Reality AR view dwells in the capacity of visualizing exactly what Star Trails pattern you'll get depending on the shooting spot and shooting direction So you know where to frame!

Drag your finger from right to left on the Night AR view to move time forwards. This allows you to see where the Moon and the Milky Way will be during the shooting. By using the Night AR view you'll be able to re-adjust the shooting spot according to your needs. It's as simple as checking whether the Star Trails pattern you get is the one you want. If it's not the case, simply change the shooting spot ;. Again, if you need help with the Night AR view, please watch the video at the beginning of this section.

You'll learn how to properly take advantage of the Night Augmented Reality view to plan your Star Trails shots. The first one shows where the Polaris is. And the second one, where the celestial equator is thick blue diagonal. The thin blue curves you see show the Star Trails pattern I'll get in each direction. If the sky is well past sunset near black sky then I'd test with ISO and a second exposure. You should get a good star field including the milky way and only slight movement in the stars themselves.

Of course, even with the best cameras, ISO is going to introduce some noise which can be mitigated with post-processing. Closer to dusk minutes after sunset , when there's still some color in the sky, you can generally drop your ISO to more noise manageable levels. These choices are subjective: test and find your preferences. With your camera set up and ready to go, your first option is to simply do a long exposure basically anything over 30 seconds fits this category.

As I said previously, you'll need Bulb "B" exposure capability and a remote cable release. The timing of your exposure depends on how long of a star trail you wish to capture. The pictures below demonstrate progressive examples at 15, 30, 45 and 60 minutes. The 90 minute exposure at the top of this page used a very reasonable ISO and f6. Long exposures with digital cameras have a major drawback: noise. Even with my De noise was a problem and required significant post processing spotting to remove.

This is especially true it you wish to make a sizable print. The De offers in-camera high ISO noise reduction but this requires nearly equal time to process in camera as the exposure. A 90 minute exposure took an additional 90 minutes to process. That's 3 hours of total time. And while the heavy noise was reduced in the most contrasty areas of the image, I still found significant noise throughout the image. It's hard to suggest this method unless you enjoy spending hours at the computer cleaning up spots to get a good printable image.

On the flip side, the photographs have their own pleasurable aesthetic. The red glow inside the bus was done by shining a red LED flashlight inside the bus from the other side, during one of the exposures. There are two ways to photograph star trails. The first is the old-fashioned way, using a single exposure. For this method, exposures can range anywhere from several minutes, to several hours.

This method was the only way to photograph star trails in the days before digital cameras. When using the single exposure method, your camera needs to be in manual mode, with the shutter speed set to Bulb. Some cameras have a separate mode for Bulb. It is like manual mode, but the shutter stays open for as long as the release button is depressed.

A time controller such as the Nikon MCA , or Canon TCN3 can make things easier by allowing you to lock the shutter button down, or program a set amount of time for the exposure. ISO should be set to The wider the aperture is open, the brighter the star trails will be. If you are photographing in a completely dark setting, with no moonlight, the stars will likely be the brightest object in your scene.

The longer the exposure, the longer the trails. The image below was a 30 minute exposure. This image was created as a single exposure. The star trails are dimmer due to the smaller aperture, the fact that the moon was still in the sky, and light pollution from the city in the distance, seen as the glow to the right. The street in the foreground was painted with an LED flashlight for several seconds during the exposure.

One thing you need to be concerned with when using a single long exposure is Long Exposure Noise Reduction. If you choose to photograph star trails using a single exposure, the heat generated on the imaging sensor adds noise to the image. Turning on Long Exposure Noise Reduction reduces that noise by using a method known as dark frame subtraction. Long Exposure Noise Reduction doubles the length of time needed to make an image.