My first ever star trails photo taken while I was out camping in the Rocky Mountains near Big Horn Dam, Alberta. The first night out was gloomy and cloudy, but then it cleared all of a sudden. So I got excited and quickly set up my tripod and camera, set my shutter to “bulb”, and left my camera exposing for about 30 minutes. I took a total of two 30 minute exposures until it started to rain again.
Much to my disappointment when editing the photos back at home on my computer, the two photos were covered in hot pixels because of the sensor heating up during long exposures! At first, I didn’t even know why my photos looked so bad until I did some reading about super long exposure times. I combined my two exposures to lengthen the star trails in this image.
Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with my first attempt at a star trail photo. The experience while taking the photo was the most rewarding, however. There’s hardly anything more tranquil than sitting and watching the stars in silence alone while I waited for my camera to expose.
raydak 