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[tony69]

good evening my name is tony

iam just starting out in astronomy iam saving for my first scope untill i get it iam just taking photos of the moon have tryed star trails but dont seem to be getting it right so iam here to ask for any ones advice and help please thankyou.

[rowan46]

hello and welcome. I assume you have a camera capable of long exposure, a steady tripod and a shutter release cable would be handy. in theory it's very simple, point the camera towards polaris, low iso because you will be doing a very long exposure, large apparture becuase you want a nice wide field and focus, then take the pic. your most likely problem is going to be light pollution which makes your pic very orange. you're going to have to process that out better still go to a dark site to do it

[tony69]

hello and welcome. I assume you have a camera capable of long exposure, a steady tripod and a shutter release cable would be handy. in theory it's very simple, point the camera towards polaris, low iso because you will be doing a very long exposure, large apparture becuase you want a nice wide field and focus, then take the pic. your most likely problem is going to be light pollution which makes your pic very orange. you're going to have to process that out better still go to a dark site to do it

sorry to ask this i havebeen doing photograthy for years but brain has gone a sleep low iso 200 lrg apparture? it is nice and dark were iam i have a 18-55 mm lens tryed with f3.5 what sort of shutter speed i have a canon 350d loads of lenses ect tripod is very good have taken some pics of moontonight so any help please is very welcome thankyou.

[rowan46]

To get a good trail you will need as long an exposure as possible. but with an exposure this long it builds up a lot of noise in the camera hence low iso maybe 80-100. shutter speed in the minutes, as many as your camera can do and a fairly wide f stop maybe 2.8?. to be fair My camera doesn't have the capacity for trails as its longest exposure is only 30 secs

[Ant]

First thing it to make sure your in focus (not as easy as it sounds), I usually focus on something very very far away during twilight - this will be a good starting point.

You can then take test shots to nail the focus (then mark the focus point with a tipex pen or similar).

Once your in focus, then adjust the ISO (the higher the temperature the lower the ISO. So maybe ISO100 or 200 in the summer - maybe up to ISO 800 in the winter).

Then point towards the north and open the shutter for say 5 minutes. You'll get some nice star trails with that.

Get lost and you can add them together for some long star trails or turn them into an animation!

Welcome to SGL.

Ant

[JamesM]

Tony, the Sky At Night magazine has been running a series of helpful imaging guides for the type of photography you are attempting. It is possible to get hold of back copies through their website and I believe its April's edition that would be of most help to you. Sometimes it's helpful to see instructions written down in easy steps than to possibly explain some of the detail.

Hope that helps too.

James

[Adamski]

Hello and welcome.

[tony69]

thankyou everyone that gave me good advice keep it coming please.