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A night time walk in the yard.......stars
William81
Member Posts: 25,352 ✭✭✭✭
One of the joys of living in the county is the beautiful starry nights...Tonight was one of those especially clear nights and the view of the Big Dipper from my front yard was amazing..
I am trying to figure out the best way to try and photograph it....so far tries have been a little blurry...anyone taken night pics ? Any input is appreciated..
I think I will go set up a lawn chair and watch for shooting stars....it is in the high 60's and just fantastic out...😃 Get out there and take a look, it is a much better show than anything on the tube !!!
Comments
A good tripod, a shutter that can be set to open on a time delay so that you don't have to touch the camera, and a sloooowww shutter speed. That and bunches of practice!
Thank you I will give that a try...
Practice is the key word. Too slow of a shutter speed can also cause blur due to the rotation of Earth. An open aperture may also help.
Tonight are the Alpha Aurid meteors, they peak tonight and tomorrow. Watch the NNE lowish in the sky.
a friend took this with her cellphone out in Zion National park
One trick I used back in the day was to set the camera on a tripod, aim it where I wanted it, placed a piece of black construction paper over the lens. With the camera on bulb, the aperture on whatever you want, gently remove the paper, count to whatever you want, then replace the paper. I was shooting a 4th of July fireworks show, but it will work equally as well with stars.
Joe
I hung a concrete block from my tripod when I was shooting tanks firing. Sure helped stop the vibrations. Might work with stars too.
Thanks all....I got my tripod out and ready to roll late last evening....and the clouds rolled in and that ended it...so will try again tonight !!!
I stayed up late to watch the meteors and saw three really nice ones. Keep trying!
+1
Turn off auto focus and manually focus to infinity. Set you shutter speed to however many seconds seem appropriate and open aperture to widest your lens has. If you don't have a wired or wireless shutter release set the self timer at or near longest delay (some cameras have more that two settings). If you use two second or thereabouts there may still be vibration present in your tripod when the shutter trips. If your cam has live view use that also. The motion of the mirror could also cause blur inducing vibration. One last. Keep your tripod as low as possible. The more you extend the legs, the less stable it will be.
Had a flight from Boston to Richmond VA- leaving Boston at 11:30 PM. The night of the Leonid meteor shower. Had a window seat, left side of aircraft (facing east) Shortly after take off, they dimmed the cabin lights.
BEST METEOR WATCHING EVER. 30,000 feet, No moon. All the lights were below us. Think the captain, first officer and self were the only ones watching the show outside the plane.
That is fantastic! Watching a meteor shower from 30,000 feet. No atmosphere to obscure the view.