Lockdown Star Trails Pagham - a photo on Flickriver

I have taken this viewpoint from my back garden several times before but the current lockdown seemed a good time to try it again. The timing was ideal because last week had many day of clear blue skies and cloudless nights. Also the moon was up during the day not at night. Never let anybody convince you that it is only possible to take decent star trail images many miles away from any light pollution. This was taken in my back garden in a medium sized town though it is on the edge of town. As long as there is no street light directly in the field of view the Camera can see and record stars.

Nearly 3 hours worth of Star Trails taken from my back garden in Pagham last night. 354 shots at 30 seconds each and then combined in free software Startrails.exe. Set it up with a timer and then left it to it overnight until the battery ran out. This can be done in an urban area as long as no street light is in the field of view. Done with a wide angle lens. Pointed north towards the pole star to get the circle.

The camera was set to manual at f5 aperture, shutter speed was set to 30 seconds and ISO 1000. I knew where the North Star was from previous shots but would otherwise use the Google Sky Map App. It is very important to turn off all long exposure and high ISO noise reduction to avoid increasing the gap between exposures.

In previous shots for the same amount of time I would have to use the heal tool to remove about 8 to 10 airplane tracks on individual shots. This one with lockdown reducing flights there was not a single airplane airplane track. StarTrails.exe is free from www.startrails.de/html/software.html and automatically does the blending using jpegs. The latest version has a new feature which cuts out the small gaps between each image as the camera triggers the shutter. More of the trails were brought out with Topaz Clarity and then Topaz DeNoise was used. Some small colour adjustments were made using a Vibrance layer and a layer mask to exclude the foreground.

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Taken on: April 22, 2020

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Long exposure

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star trails

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Groups appears in: • England • Geometric Beauty more » • nighthawks • Long Exposure • Flickr Addicts • Night Lights • Astronomy • 28mm or wider • dream or reality? • Star Trails • West Sussex - UK • Nice pictures • *GreatPixGallery 50 Faves+ • Englands South Coast • α - Sony Alpha Cameras • [Star Trails] • Night shooters • Star Tracing - Stars Trails In Motion • Startrails.exe - stacked images • moon and sky photographs • Bognor Regis Camera Club « less

Camera: Sony ILCA-68, f/5.0, 30 sec, 10mm (=15mm), ISO 1000 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Sony ILCA-68
Aperture:	f/5.0
Exposure Time:	30
Focal Length:	10mm (35mm equivalent: 15mm)
ISO:	1000
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Manual
Light Source:	Daylight
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows
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