Star Trail help...again

[Space Oddity6]

Hey guys,

I realise I already made a thread on this about 6 months ago but I acquired a new camera (Nikon D90) recently so wanted to try it out but cannot figure out how to set it all up.

Could anyone with the same/similar camera advise me on what settings they used and how they set it all up in as simple terms as possible?

I don't have a remote but just want to figure out how to set the camera to take pictures every 20 or 30 seconds or so.

Thanks.

[Space Oddity6]

Anyone?

[julian_1234]

I don't think the D90 has a built-in intervalometer.

You can buy hand-held devices that connect into the remote socket of your D90.

I bought one from Ebay for my D70, but had to replace the connector with an infra red remote control since the D70 doesn't have a socket.

IIRC it was around £25 delivered, but that was a couple of years ago.

Just looking on ebay there's a UK seller selling one for around £40.

Search ebay for "TIME LAPSE remote release timer NIKON D90" and it should find it, but you would probably get cheaper ones from HK/China.

You can then use startrails to create your picture.

Julian.

[Space Oddity6]

Thanks for your reply Julian, I figured out how to switch to bulb mode and put the shutter speed on indefinitely.

I think now I need to find something that in going to weigh the shutter button down, probably some blue-tac, and to also figure out how long I can leave it for, I hear a part of the camera can be damaged if you leave it for too long.

How's your D70 at astro photography? I'd love to see some of your pics if you've got any.

[julian_1234]

I've only tried it once so far, and used the startrails program to make a picture.

It was only an experiment, and I forgot to take any dark frames so it has a few hot pixels.

Now the nights are drawing in I'll be trying it again soon, hopefully with a new 5100 or 7000 :-)

Rather than taking one long exposure try out the stacking method.

Not sure about adding live links, but if you stick this in Google:

let's go streaking site:liquidinplastic.com

that gives a good explanation.

Good luck.

[Photosbykev]

in the UK there are very few places you can use the single long exposure method for startrails. The light pollution will completely swamp any stars in the final image. In addition you will need to take a dark frame to counter sensor noise which will be as long as the main exposure.

Using a lot of shorter exposures allows you control the amount of light pollution in each image and then use a single set of dark frames for the whole image sequence to counter noise.

The images and the dark frames can be processed by a programme called Startrails.exe for your final result.

The image on the link below is the result of 2016 ten second images taken over 6 hours. A single exposure greater than about 30 seconds was overcome by light pollution.

This link is how I used the camera and post processing Penmon Point Lighthouse

[JoLo]

I use Star Trails all the time, can't argue with free. I also use it to create .avi's, which is a nice added value....wasn't sure from the post if you had the download site or not:

Startrails application

[julian_1234]

I've attached a copy of the picture I took.

It's nothing special, as it's been my only attempt so far.

As I said before there's quite a few hot pixels, but there's also some strange periodic "flashes" near the bottom. I assume they're some type of satellites.

I'm not sure how many exposures there were (you can probably count the dots), but the exposure times IIRC were 30 seconds (no NR), with about a 5 second gap to allow a card write.

[Photosbykev]

all of those paired 'hot' pixels towards the bottom are plane trails

[julian_1234]

Ah OK ... that would make sense.

[JoLo]

Try the free app above, it will really help. You can limit the sky fog by taking shorter exposures and stacking as many you want; by taking the shots closer together, you can eliminate the "dots" in the trail as well. You can also eliminate the ones with jet trails but simply removing them from the stack. I also use the .avi movie option as well....I have some great time lapse shots of flowers opening in the evening using the Star Trails app. Worth checking out, can't harm since it's a free download.