Starscapes

[d0051m]

Sampsa

Thanks so much for all the tips. The weather here in England has been so bad recently so not a clear sky in sight. I will be trying all of this when the clouds lift. I find the post processing difficult. All that you say about blending in the foreground, I have no idea how to do this!

Thanks, edd

[qwRad]

Thanks so much for all the tips. The weather here in England has been so bad recently so not a clear sky in sight. I will be trying all of this when the clouds lift. I find the post processing difficult. All that you say about blending in the foreground, I have no idea how to do this!

Great shot! Thanks for sharing the details. I would like to try star trails one of these nights.. when it's warmer to stay out late at night and no work the next day.

Thank you both for the nice feedback!

Yeah the weather has been quite grey and dull here too for most of January but lately there has been a couple of clear days which is nice. On clear nights it is a little bit cold though (-22 Celsius or -7.6 Fahrenheit during capturing of the image I posted) but fortunately I can leave the camera on top of my apartment building and sleep in my warm bed while it is doing the hard work. Attached is a crappy cell phone image of the camera when I got up to get it back inside around 8 AM after another night on the roof in the same conditions as the posted image was taken in.

I would love to go camping somewhere north of Finland (in Lapland) where there is hardly any light pollution and there would even be a chance to see the northern lights. Should make for interesting night sky images. Maybe if I have the time in February.

As far as blending in the foreground from another shot I just open both images in Photoshop and copy the composite with the star trails as a new layer on top of the image that I want to use for the foreground. Then I apply a simple layer mask to the composite layer where the star trails are and paint over the mask with a low opacity black Brush tool to reveal parts of the image layer below that has the good foreground.

Hope this helps. You should also find plenty of tutorials from web/youtube if you google "working with layers" or "blending layers together in photoshop" or something along those lines.

5D3 with battery grip + Samyang 8mm Fisheye after spending about 10 hours in -20 celcius: