By Fred Holman | 2024-07-02
Star Trails over Georgia Strait, Vancouver Island
On 06/20/2024 12:56 am by Nathan Eaton Jr | Website | Union Bay, BC
On a recent trip to Vancouver Island, staying on the coast of the Georgia Strait in Union Bay, we had a few days of crystal clear weather. On one of those nights I decided to try taking a star trail shot. Rather than taking one long exposure (as with film), my plan was to shoot multiple short exposures and merge them in post processing.
As you can see, shooting directly out over the strait involved having the camera aimed just a little east of due north. The small arc in the center of all the other concentric arcs is the star Polaris, the North Star. The brighter star trails around it are from stars in constellations like Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Perseus and Cygnus. If you look closely, you'll see some color variations; not all the stars are white.
One light streak I left in that isn't a star trail is on the far right: a small meteor (shooting star).
See my blog for the rest of the story.
Nikon D750
Irix 15mm 15mm f2.4 Firefly
Peak Design Travel Tripod
Foreground image shot at f/8, 20 seconds; adjusted in Lightroom to adjust exposure, contrast (white balance left as shot) then touched up in Photoshop to remove blemishes (hot pixels, blurred plants)
871 images shot at f/4, 5 seconds; touched up in Lightroom to remove airplane and satellite light trails then stacked in StarStaX.
Exported image from StarStaX blended with foreground image in Photoshop using Lighten mode; created mask to show sky from StarStaX image and foreground from foreground image.