There's an old phrase, chasing needles in haystacks. I've been using it for years and it basically implies searching for the almost impossible. So when I'm shooting a star trail image, the plane trails visible in the layers are quite literally trying to find needles in haystacks!
Last night, specifically a Saturday night, I was doing nothing in particular other than resting my weary bones after the previous night's lightpainting in a slippy and treachorous cave. But then I looked at the weather forecast and saw that it was clear! It's been a very long time since the conditions were right for anything like astrophotography so I dragged my carcass off the couch and drove 40 miles to Magpie Mine. There isn't many chances like this so it's a case of grab it while you can!
This is what I bagged last night:
To make the above image, I first looked to see where Polaris was in the sky. (For those that don't know, Polaris is otherwise known as the North Star in that it is almost exactly due north and doesn't move in the sky).
I lined up Polaris in my composition and focussed on the foreground winding gear. I placed a cheap RGB LED panel in the base of the gear and exposed for 10 seconds. I made a couple of test shots and adjusted the power output on the RGB panel until I got the desired result.
I then set a sequence going on my camera. For the trails I shot 360 images of 10 second exposures at f1.8 aperture. My ISO was set to 640. The Sony A7iii I was using creates great trails at such a low ISO but the noise levels are excellent from this camera.
So over the course of an hour, I stood and waited in the dark for the camera to finish it's sequence.
Once home well after 1am in the morning, I did a quick preliminary stack of the images before going to my bed! This is what I got:
As you can see, there are literally hundreds of plane trails flying through my shot. To get rid of these I select individual layers and clone out the trails. This part can take an age and this morning I spent two hours looking for interstellar needles in galactic haystacks!
The stray light in the corner was spilt by a couple of astrophotographers who were shooting on the other side of the mine. Photoshop soon got rid of that!
I've shot Magpie Mine a few times before. This is a shot which whilst being popular on social media, it has annoyed me because of the composition!
And this is an earlier shot where I wasn't quite so good at lining up Polaris! Notice the cheeky flypast by the International Space Station on the right....
Sometimes, the moon gets in the way of star trails and astrophotography. This is one such example so I decided to light paint the mine instead. Note to self, lightpaint the mine and combine it with a star trail!
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to create art.
Social Media
https://www.facebook.com/fastchrisuk
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fastchris/
