Star Trails

Last night it was clear, cold and dark. Just perfect for doing some star trail photography. After midnight I went out into the backyard and set up my camera so that it would be facing Polaris the North Star. I took a couple of test images to create a nice composition. Then I started up the camera and went to bed. This morning I got up before sunrise and collected my camera.I went into the office and processed the images using an image processing program called Star Stax I'm quite happy with the final result. I was really surprised that there weren't any meteors in it. Have a beautiful day, chris

Camera Equipment Used- Canon 7D and a Canon 10-22 at 10mm, Manfrotto 055XPROB Tripod with a 3055 Ballhead. Camera settings- Manual Mode, ISO 5,000, F4.5 at 30 seconds.

Polaris The North Star

Polaris is a pretty cool star. It is located in the constellation of Ursa Minor, the Little Bear. The easiest way to find Polaris is to find the Big Dipper. The two end stars that make up the end of the pot of the dipper (not the handle) point downward almost directly at the North Star. That is why they are sometimes called the pointer stars. One of the most amazing things about Polaris is the fact that it sits directly above the North Pole of the earth. If you were to stab a giant pin through the axis of the earth from the south pole to the north pole it would point directly at Polaris. Because of this if you take a long exposure of the sky at night with your camera the star trails formed will create circles around Polaris! This image was made with an exposure of close to an hour and a half.It's pretty easy to find Polaris at the center of the circles just barely above the treeline. Enjoy and God bless, chris