Twilight stars, November 21st 2009 from Persbuhaugen (Veggli), Norway

A time-lapse sequence of twilight stars as seen from Persbuhaugen (Veggli), Norway on November 21. 2009. A total of 506 images where obtained from 17:52 to 22:05 UTC using 2 images pr. minute (30 seconds interval) and later assembled into a time-lapse movie at 10fps. This speeds up the motion by a factor of 300, effectively compressing the ~4 hour 13 minutes of duration down to ~50 seconds. The images were obtained using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II @ ISO1600 equipped with a 15mm f/2,8 lens @ f/2,8 and a exposure time of 25 seconds.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• stars
• time-lapse

[spy140]

great. i would like to use this in the classroom if you dont mind. i teach astronomy to 16 year olds. perfect for showing circumpolar stars and the rotation of the earth about the celestial pole.

was planning to try it myself also with a 5d mk11 using a 15mm fisheye. any tips. dont get many opportunities in liverpool.

[arnedani]

You are of course welcome to use the video!

Best regards,

Arne

[arnedani]

As for advice on making time-lapse movies of the night sky;

* Make sure you the camera mounted on a sturdy tripod.

* Turn off any automatic preview option on the camera.

* Select a high ISO value (for the 5D Mk II you can select 1600 without getting to much noise) to get as short exposures as possible.

* Make sure the camera is focused on infinity and turn off autofocus

[arnedani]

* Put you camera into manual and select a large aperture as you can while getting decent sharpness from the lens (f/2,8 works fine for the EF 15mm f/2,8 fisheye) and select a suitable exposure time for your scene (5-30 seconds).

* Make a few test shots and evaluate framing, focus and the histogram before you start the sequence.

[arnedani]

* Set you intervallometer to an interval of the exposure time pluss 2-5 seconds (depending on the speed of your memory card) to allow the image to be written to the memory card between the shots

* Have warm drink, relax and enjoy the night sky while the camera does all the work.

Best regards,

Arne

[mercsport]

Very nice framing to this scene. A nice ambience too. Also, it was quite wonderful to see Polaris nailed perfectly still at the top of the frame and the rest of the sky pinwheeling around it.

[arnedani]

Thank you very much!

Arne

[spy140]

thanks very much

[arnedani]

Thanks!

Some cityscape in the foreground and even a bit of clouds can really add to a startrail project.

Best regards,

Arne

[Nachtwolke]

Cool video, here in germany we had bad weather for weeks and not one star was visible. If the Weather changes I will try to make a startrail video too, but it will show much less stars because of the bad lightpollution that ruins my sky.