Star Trail Photography (sort of)

[boBQuincy]

I prefer the way Jeff does this (and plan to actually do it that way some night) but I didn't have the 30 minutes required to take the photo and Photoshop CS5 has this fascinating star trail rotation action... *And* Stellarium gives the option to look at the sky from anywhere, even the Southern hemisphere with the Southern Cross!

 

[Marlton Mom]

Oooh! Aaah! Very nice!

Was this a plug in for CS5 or did it come with the software? I have CS4 so I'll have to dig around and see if I can find it.

Thanks!
Marlton Mom

 

[boBQuincy]

Oooh! Aaah! Very nice!

Was this a plug in for CS5 or did it come with the software? I have CS4 so I'll have to dig around and see if I can find it.

Thanks!
Marlton Mom

The action came with CS5 but it should work with CS4. It is not very sophisticated, mostly it adds a layer, rotates it slightly, then merges the layers and repeats.

 

[boBQuincy]

 

[boBQuincy]

Looking North, Feb 09 2009

 

[pgowder]

Looking North, Feb 09 2009

Do did the original photo have stars and PS just does the rotation?

 

[pgowder]

Here are some I did.


Magic Kingdom Star Trails by Paul Gowder, on Flickr


Startrails over Carousel of Progress by Paul Gowder, on Flickr


Star Trails over the Castle by Paul Gowder, on Flickr

 

[boBQuincy]

Do did the original photo have stars and PS just does the rotation?

The stars in this image are from the planetarium software, "Stellarium". By entering the GPS coordinates of the Castle, the compass direction in which the camera was pointing, and the exact time and date of the exposure I was able to accurately recreate the stars that would be visible in the image. Aligning the generated stars with the few that were visible in the original image confirmed that Stellarium is right on the money!

The rotation was done by the action in CS5.