How To: Photograph Star Trails

Star Trails in the sky around Polaris (the North Star)

This past evening, with a clear sky finally within my grasp, I dragged my Husband out to the country to finally learn how to shoot star trails.

Now star trails are exactly what you see above - the trails of stars in the night sky as they circle around Polaris, the North Star. If you have a camera with a "bulb" setting, this should be easy enough to do. Generally most SLR and DSLR cameras have this setting.

Having now photographed them for myself, I'll give you Stephie's list of dos and don'ts.

DO

• Do go to the darkest area you know of. We live in the GTA (General Toronto Area), so that's difficult, but we went further north so that the north star would not be encompassed in the light pollution of Toronto. 
• Do use a wide aperture, as it will allow more light (aka the stars) in. I used f/5.6.
• Do learn how to spell "aperture" without using google to check.
• Do use the lowest ISO setting you can, to avoid noise. I used 100. Can't get any better than that!
• Do check your focus. Since it's hard to focus your lens on the stars, what I do is turn off my autofocus, manually focus where I think it should be, turn my ISO up to 1600 and then turn the shutter speed to 30 seconds. The resulting photo was bright enough for me to see how my focus looked.
• Do use a star map to find Polaris, the North Star, or look for Ursa Minor (the little dipper). Polaris is the tip of the handle. The stars circle around Polaris. You don't have to, but it looks cool.
• Do use a tripod, or your Husband's arms are going to be SO tired.
• Do use a shutter trigger to keep your shutter open for a long time or your Husband's finger is going to be SO tired from holding down the button.
• Do bring your Husband.
• Do eat pizza. It's delicious.
• Do watch "Batman Begins" on your mini DVD player in your car while your shutter is open, capturing the moving stars. I highly recommend it, it's really an excellent film, and Christian Bale's turn as Batman is exquisite. Four and a half stars.
• Do leave the shutter open for as long as you like. The photo above was 60 minutes long, but I've seen people leave it open for more than two hours.

Now for my DONT'S.

DON'T

• Don't forget your shutter trigger and your memory card in your apartment and have to turn back like an idiot.
• Don't keep accidentally saying, "noise pollution" instead of "light pollution" or you're going to get corrected by your Husband about 50 billion times (a slight exaggeration).
• Don't burn the roof of your mouth on the pizza. 
• Don't be terrified of the dark countryside outside of your car as you sit in it, helpless if some psycho killer redneck who lives on the farm where you are decides he wants photographer for dinner and comes with a rock and smashes your window and pulls you out as you scream and try to fight back, but you really don't stand a chance because he's been lifting hay bails his entire life and all you do is lift cameras and he also sometimes works out to the P90X video his Grandma got him for Christmas so he's like, super strong, and he has a wheel barrow that he puts you in and he carts you away and serves you with a nice Pinot Grigio and a bearnaise sauce!....Yeah, don't be scared of that.
• Don't watch too many horror films.
• Don't keep thinking about that.
• I SAID STOP IT. Ahem.
• Don't accidentally turn your ankle while getting out of the car to turn off the shutter trigger when the photo is finished.
• Don't hop up and down on one foot and mutter curse words through your gritted teeth after you turn your ankle while getting out of the car to turn off the shutter trigger when the photo is finished.
• Don't freeze when you hear a coyote howl in the distance.
• Don't say, in a terrified voice, "Was that a coyote?!" when you hear a coyote howl in the distance.
• Don't grab your camera and tripod and throw them into the backseat of your car before launching yourself into the passenger seat and yelling, "FLOOR IT, FLOOR IT!" after you hear a coyote howl in the distance.
• Don't drive home at lightspeed because you heard a coyote howl in the distance.

Star trails in Milton, Ontario

And there you have it! Now you know how to take a photo of stars moving in the night sky. I can tell you're thrilled and want to get right on that. And if I forgot to mention anything, don't sue me. I'm not a professional, I'm a geek.

But hey, I'm not being served with bearnaise sauce right now, so it's all good! 

High five, ya'll!