I returned home to Birmingham, AL for Thanksgiving.
For all my nightscape photography, I had been borrowing the UIUC library cameras. Finally home, I took an old DSLR (Nikon D3300) with a basic kit lens (18-50mm f/3.5) and captured this image of the star trails. I'll probably take this to UIUC, and save a few hundred dollars on buying a camera.
I was gifted with perfect weather conditions: no cloud, great visibility.
Star Trails captured on backyard deck
These are the best star trails I have been able to capture so far. However, I still messed up the shutter speed + gap. I took 201 frames of 15 sec exposures with 1 sec gap. With this setup, I'm seeing streaking gaps between star positions.
Next time:
- I'll take a 20 second exposure with either 0 (preferred) or 1 second gaps.
- Separate the foreground and background layer and apply an oil-painting filter in Photoshop.
Mr. Bo
My astrophotography partner.
I don't know what the limit of the Nikon D3300 is. I'm not sure if, at this point, I should buy a more modern sensor for a few hundred $, or if the money would be better invested in a Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 lens.