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Photographing star trails can be challenging but also rewarding. If you've never tried it, these tips will help you get started.

Choosing the Place and Time

To make a striking photograph of the stars, there are a few requirements when it comes to choosing the right place and time.

You must be far away from any city lights since any ambient light will make the stars less visible. If you live in a big city, this could mean traveling some distance. Recently I was in Nevada, about an hour's drive away from Las Vegas, and I couldn't believe the amount of light in the sky from the city.

For the photograph to have a sense of place, you will need something interesting in the foreground. It must be something that doesn't move like a mountain or a building.

Plan your star photography adventure for a moonless night. Or at least the moon cannot be above the horizon while you are photographing. Similar to what happens with city lights, the stars are not as visible when the moon brightens the sky.

It should also be a clear night with no clouds.

Method

The best way to go about making an image of star trails is to take multiple exposures and combine them in post processing.

While it is possible to take one very long exposure, often the heat coming from the sensor will cause hot spots in your final image.

I usually use a 30 second shutter speed and make 60 images.

Gear You Will Need

The most important thing you will need is a tripod to stabilize your camera during the long exposures.

A cable release or intervalometer is extremely handy but not essential.

You can use the 2 second timer on your camera and manually click the shutter continuously for half an hour. It can be done. But, with a cable release you can set your camera to continuous shooting and lock the cable release and your camera will continue to make images until you unlock it.

If you have an intervalometer, you can program it to take a specific number of images of a particular shutter speed. This is the easiest but most expensive way to go about it.

Finally, make sure you have a fully charged battery since the cold night may cause your battery life to be shorter than usual.

Taking the shots

Once you are on location and the gear is ready to go, you can set up your composition.

If possible, go one night ahead of time and locate polaris, the north star, in the sky. If you can manage to get polaris in the frame, all the stars will circle around it. If polaris is not in the frame, the stars will appear to travel in a semi-circle. If you can't go a day ahead of time, use your compass and try to get as much sky in the frame as possible.

I like to set up my composition during the day so I get just the right amount of foreground in the frame and set the focus so that the foreground is sharp. This is much easier to do during the day than it is once it is dark outside.

Remember once you have set the correct focus to turn your auto-focus off so your camera does not attempt to re-focus at night. Also, your image stabilization should be off anytime your camera is on a tripod.

When it's dark and you are ready to begin, which will probably be a couple of hours after sunset at least, you can do some tests to make sure you are getting good exposures. You will want to use a large aperture (small F stop number) to ensure you have the greatest amount of light entering the camera as possible. If you try to use a smaller aperture, the star trails we be very dim. So, since you need a 30 second shutter speed and a small aperture, such as f/4, proper exposure will be determined by the ISO. Try taking a test shot at ISO1600 and see if you can see the stars in the image. If not, increase the ISO to 3200.

Also, make sure you turn your in-camera noise reduction off because it will require an additional 30 seconds after you make your exposure to do the noise reduction and you will end up with little gaps in your trails.

Processing the Image

To combine your images, I recommend a free program I have been using called StarStaX which is easy to use and it does a great job. Just point StarStaX to the folder that contains all the exposures, selected "lighten" as the blend mode, and let it go to work.

This can be the most exciting part of the whole experience since you finally get to see what you have created!

Once you have the stacked image, you might find you have some UFO's in it that look like straight lines crossing your curved star trails. Those can be caused by comets or airplanes. I usually use the healing brush in Photoshop to remove them.

You might have to invest a bit of time in planning, making the exposures, and processing the images, but the final result will be well worth the investment. All you really need is a bit of patience.

Anne McKinnell is a photographer, writer and nomad. She lives in an RV and travels around North America photographing beautiful places and writing about travel, photography, and how changing your life is not as scary as it seems. You can read about her adventures on her blog and be sure to check out her free photography eBooks.

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Photographing star trails can be challenging but also rewarding. If you've never tried it, these tips will help you get started. Choosing the Place and Time To make a striking photograph of the stars, there are a few requirements when it comes to choosing the right place and time.

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Ever seen those pictures where the stars streak across the sky in a big arc? Or maybe the whole sky looked like it was spinning?

What you saw was star trails. The streaks were light left behind on the sensor or film from the star as it traveled across the sky in front of an open camera shutter. In fact, it only seems that way. What actually being recorded are stationary stars and the rotation of the earth that makes them spin. Kinda like you were standing on a vinyl record while it is playing. (yes, vinyl record, it is a form of ancient iPod).

For me, the images seem to have a certain magic or mystery about them. You must have heard a photographer talking about capturing that perfect moment in time. Well for capturing star trails you will need to capture the perfect hour or two in time. For such amazing looking images the technique to capture them is really quite simple. Keep reading for a complete set of instructions from start to finish.

150 minutes of night sky taken on Salt Spring Island in Canada

What Will You Need?

Before you gas up the car and head out in to the night, check the short list below to make sure you have all the required gear.

A camera capable of shooting in "Bulb" mode

A sturdy tripod

A cable release

Some things that you will find useful but are not necessary to get started would be

A decent flashlight,

Some extra warm clothing and

Anything else to prepare you for the weather and elements.

If you are heading into a remote location it may be much colder at night than what you are used to where you live. So be prepared.

A temple for foreground interest

Where should I go?

A temple for foreground interest....

I tend to look for locations that are have some foreground interest. It may be an abandoned building, large infrastructure like a radio tower or a bridge, or some natural features like rock formations or big trees.

You may choose to add light to these features with a flashlight or keep them as silhouettes against the star filled sky.

Though it is possible to capture star trails in town, it is much easier if you try this far away from any city lights. Darker skies means you can crank up your ISO and open up your lens really wide and capture a greater number of visible stars.

City lights that are not even visible to the naked eye will show up over a long exposure so when you think you have finally found some dark skies keep on driving!

It really pays off doing some research before embarking on a shoot especially if you have never seen the location in the day before.

Star Trails Basics

There are multiple ways to go about shooting star trails. I will start with the basics that do not change whether you are using an analogue SLR or a DSLR.

Before dialing in any settings you should go ahead and mount your camera onto a tripod. Roughly compose your shot and set the focus.

Focusing

In the dark, it is not easy to get the AF to lock on to anything, but do not worry there are several solutions to this.

If you are including foreground objects I suggest making sure that they are in focus. If you are using a wide angle lens the foreground object and the stars will probably both be in focus even at a very wide aperture. I find that it is fairly safe to just set the focus to infinity if it is a wide angle or fisheye lens right from the start.

Some lenses will not have those markings so shining the light on the foreground subject while using the AF function may work if the flashlight is bright. If not go lay the flashlight on the ground at the base of what you are shooting and focus on that.

Once you have achieved the glorious state of "in focus" be sure to set it to MF or manual focus before starting your exposure or it will start searching again when you start the exposure and you will lose your focus.

Composition

So now you should have your camera focused and set to manual focus (MF) and the shot roughly composed.

When composing the shot try not to include any direct light sources, like streetlights, in the shot.

If you are not using film then I suggest doing a test shot which aids in composing your final shot. A test shot can be made by doing a 2-3 minute exposure at very high ISO and wide aperture. This should be enough to be able to see which direction the stars are moving and allow one to imagine what the final shot will look like.

Recompose the shot if necessary and zoom in on the LCD to double check you focus is accurate.

White balance

White balance set to 10000 Kelvin

White balance could be a whole separate tutorial on its own so I will keep this really brief. If you would like to know more about white balance in general then check out this very comprehensive article.

White balance is the relative warmth or coolness of white light. A white object would appear slightly blue with a cold color temperature and it would look slightly orange with a warm color temperature. I tend to shoot night skies with the white balance set to "tungsten" which gives a nice blue look or the extreme opposite of 10000 Kelvin giving it a deep orange color. I find that auto white balance leaves the sky brownish or "dirty" looking. You will have to refer to your cameras manual if you do not know how to change these settings.

White balance setting will affect the whole image so if you have included some foreground objects, you will need to consider what you are using to light them with. I use a variety of flashlights for this job and my white balance settings help me to determine which one to use.

LED light is very blue so if you are shooting with your white balance set to tungsten the objects lit with that light may look unnaturally blue. To avoid this I use a xenon flashlight or flashlight with an incandescent bulb which have a much higher color temperature and neutralize the blue effect. A warm light leaves objects lit with them with a natural or true color.

If LED is your only choice then consider putting some orange cellophane over the front to alter the shade of the light but doing this will reduce it effective power.

If I am shooting with my white balance set to 10000K I would generally use an LED which is the exact opposite of the above situation. Its bluish hue would neutralize the high color temperature of 10000K leaving the objects lit with it a natural or true color.

So for a cool white balance use a warm light and for a warm white balance use a cool light for lighting your foreground interest.

Single Shot Vs. Stacking

For shooting options, one could choose to do it all in one shot or shoot multiple shots and "stack" them after the fact using computer software. I personally find that shooting multiple images and stacking them yields much nicer images than those done all in one shot.

Single Shot

single exposure, 573 seconds, f/4, ISO 800,
25mm

If you are going to do it all in one shot then your biggest concern should be noise. To fight noise, one could use a narrower aperture and a lower ISO speed but these settings will typically not pick up very many stars. If this is the route you are going to take, and I suggest at least trying it, then here are the steps and settings to follow:

Focus and compose the shot.

Set the time value to "bulb"

Set the aperture to its widest

Set the ISO at 200

try for a 30-minute exposure with a wide aperture of 3.5 - 4.0.

If there is too much noise then drop the ISO to 100 and either shorten the exposure time or try a narrower aperture.

If shooting this way is your only option, there is something that you can do to increase the appearance of the length of the trails in the frame. (remember, those will be limited to due to the short exposure time). The actual length (or appearance of length) of the trails is determined by two factors: Exposure time and the focal length you are shooting at.

For example, stars over a 30-minute exposure would appear much longer in the frame at 50mm than they would at 15mm. If you find that you are limited to shorter exposure time due to noise, or any other factor, try shooting at a longer focal length to increase the appearance of the star trail length in relation to the frame. See this article that explains focal length and relative star trail length.

Stacking

A 90 min stack. Passing clouds broke a few of the trails especially at
the bottom of the frame

My heavily preferred way of shooting is shooting multiple shots and "stacking" them later using computer software. Shooting short exposure pictures means less noise, so one can shoot with a wide aperture and a faster ISO that will pick up many more stars than the previous method.

One can do this because noise becomes much less of a factor. Noise generally increases with time and with stacking, you only have to worry about 30 seconds. That means even at ISO 800 noise will be less of an issue to worry about.

There is even an option to include dark frames, which are frames shot with the lens cap on, so that even the tiny bit of noise from ISO 800 over 30 seconds will be removed.

With the higher end DSLR's and the improvement of sensor noise reduction in newer DSLRs the ISO can be bumped even higher which will result in even more visible stars streaking across the sky. Of course, you will need to find the balance for your camera based on how it handles noise.

For the stacking method it is necessary to use a cable release. It could be done with a remote but then I would recommend shooting much longer exposures than 30 seconds and stacking those, simply because a remote is not as comfortable to use.

You will be shooting possibly hundreds of images so it is important to make sure there is plenty of space on your memory card.

To get started, set your focus and compose your shot.

Set the aperture to its widest and the ISO to 800 for starters.

Dial in 30 seconds for the time value and the drive mode to "continuous shooting" mode which allows for non-stop shooting when the cable release is locked. (Now you get the cable release thing, right?)

I suggest doing a test shot first to see if everything looks all right before locking that release. If anything is too bright then dial the ISO down. Once you have taken the shots you will need to stack them using software. (More on that in a bit)

What do you mean by "Lighting A Foreground Interest"?

I mentioned above about adding light to the foreground objects and explained a few things to consider about white balance in relation to that. I often include foreground objects to complete the shots because images of just stars sometimes seem to lack a subject (and interest).

I look for interesting buildings, infrastructure or natural objects like big trees or rock formations and make them the subject of the images. I light these foreground subjects with a flashlight or speedlite. A flashlight can reach far places and can be moved around while lighting to remove shadows while a speedlite can freeze a tree that may be moving in the wind.

You will probably use a flashlight most of the time because they are a much more flexible tool and leave the foreground with a much more organic look. I highly recommend doing a few lighting test shots to see how much light is needed before locking that cable release. Too much light will distract from that beautiful star filled sky you are about to create. Remember, for foreground lighting: if you are shooting at low whilte balance, use a "warm" light like Xenon torch; if you are shooting at "tungsten" white balance, use a "cool" light like LEDs flash light..

If you are stacking then I suggest doing the foreground lighting at the beginning and again at the end. In case one of those is unsuitable for the final shot. You simply exclude those frames from the stack. If it was done in the middle and a mistake was made leaving those frames unusable it would create a break in the trail that would take away from the shot.

A final note for those with experience in night photography, keep in mind that you are now shooting wide open with your ISO jacked so adjust your lighting techniques to accommodate for that with low power flashes or less lighting time with a flashlight.

Stacking software (all free)

This is my favorite software. Unlike other free programs, it runs on Mac and Linux as well as Windows. What I like about StarStaX is the incredible speed. It is waaaay faster than using Photoshop and much easier as it does not require you to create any blank documents to get started. Open up the program and import your images. Hit start and within seconds your image is finished. Check out the homepage to see the great features it has.

This method gets the job done but is slow and ties up memory while stacking.

One major downfall of this software is that is only available for Windows. I used this a long time ago before I started using Mac. This got the job done and before StarStaX was a way of creating animated time lapse video of the stacks. I think this software has now become old and needs to be revamped if its author wants people to continue to use it.

There you have it, if you got here, you are brave! make your time count and schedule a star trail shoot this weekend.

About The Author

My name is Trevor Williams but am probably more known as tdub303. I am a general camera freak and I like to use a variety of cameras and a variety of formats. I love light painting and shooting at night which led to me being featured in a documentary. I also wrote 2 chapters for a book; one on light painting and one on star trails. My night shooting even landed me almost 7 minutes on the six o'clock news. I recently appeared in a TV commercial. I also shoot weddings and portraits to help offset the expensive camera gear habit I have.

You can find me on twitter and on Flickr, and blogger.

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Your Complete Guide For Photographing Star Trails - DIY Photography

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Ever seen those pictures where the stars streak across the sky in a big arc? Or maybe the whole sky looked like it was spinning? What you saw was star trails. The streaks were light left behind on the sensor or film from the star as it traveled across the sky in front of an open camera shutter.

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Some people have been asking for tips on how to do star trails. There seems to be a few misconceptions and a few different methods. Here's a tutorial on my personal technique.

What you need:

Camera (obviously)

Remote shutter release (or duct tape... You'll see)

Tripod

Clear skies

Adobe Bridge (optional but highly recommended), and Photoshop

Time (lots of it)

The Prep

Before we get into the method of actually shooting, there are a few things you need to take care of first, namely, finding stars, and finding a clear sky.

Firstly, you want to get as far away from light pollution as you can; luckily, some kind soul has taken the time to put together a REALLY great website just for this purpose and it can be found here. The map is pretty self explanatory; bright colors are bad, dark colors are good.

Once you find yourself a nice dark corner of the world, the next thing you need to be aware of are how clear the skies will be, this includes the current moon phase which you can find here. You want to choose a night with the least amount of moonlight, as this will make the stars appear much brighter.

Finally, once you know your location, you want to make sure you have a cloud free night otherwise you will be photographing cloud trails instead of star trails, once again, there is a tool for that! This website provides clear sky charts for many locations across North America that let you know where and when to find a cloud free sky. The chart may be a it daunting, but it is actually very simple, here is a quick example:

This shows the clear sky chart for the Athabasca Glacier in Jasper, Alberta and you can see by the legend there is essentially 90-100% cloud cover for the entire forecast period with the exception of a few hours on Friday morning moving towards lighter cloud cover Friday night. Seeing as how this is where I am planning to go on Friday - it is a bit of a gamble!

The Shooting

Now that all the planning has been taking care of, we can talk about shooting (don't worry this is the easy part!).

First, you will want to firmly set up your tripod so that it wont move or get blown over by the wind. For star trails you want to shoot on manual mode so there is no change in exposure between photos with a 30-second exposure. The ISO speed and aperture will change depending on which lens you are shooting with.

Here is a list of settings you would need to use at several common apertures to get a 30 second exposure:

f/1.4 and ISO400 = 30s
f/2.8 and ISO1600 = 30s
f/4.0 and ISO3200 = 30s
f/5.6 and ISO6400 = 30s

It goes without saying (but I'm going to say it anyways) you really want to try to get your hands on the fastest lens you can (largest aperture, smallest "F" number). These are just a good base to start with, once you frame your shot and take a few test shots, you will probably need to play around with the ISO to get the proper exposure.

For example, this was taken at f/1.4 ISO400 30s and was the starting point for one of my star trails:

Once you have your shot framed and settings dialed in, it is time to break out the remote shutter control (or duct tape). First make sure that your camera is set to drive mode so it will take consecutive shots instead of a single frame, plug in the remote and let the camera take pictures on its own for 30 min to a few hours depending on how long you want the star trails to be.

If you are taking the ghetto route because you don't have a remote (like I have many, many times) use the duct tape to tape down your shutter button, and let the camera take photos. You should end up with a minimum of 50 photos (25 minutes) to several hundred (hours).

The Editing

Now that you already have several hours of your life invested in making a single picture, the fruits of your labor are finally about to pay off! For this part of the tutorial, I'm going to be assuming a basic understanding of Adobe Bridge and Photoshop.

In Bridge:

Import all your photos into Adobe Bridge.

Open one photo into adobe RAW through Bridge and edit it to your liking.

Select all your photos, right click and select "Develop Settings > Previous Conversion" this will synchronize the editing across all your photos.

With all your photos selected, click: "Tools > Photoshop > Load files into Photoshop layers". Depending on how many photos you have, this step can take quite awhile. Once they are loaded, we can move over to working in Photoshop (this is where the fun begins).

In Photoshop:

Bridge will have made you a nice massive file with many different layers containing all your photos.

Make sure none of the layers are visible except for the bottom layer by clicking the small eye icon on each layer.

Starting from the bottom layer, click on "Layer blending options" and select "Lighten" This will blend the layers together keeping only the lightest areas of the photo.

Continue selecting each layer and change the blending mode to "Lighten". If you have trails from airplanes that you want to get rid of, you can use the brush tool, paint over them in black, and they will disappear! As you continue changing each layer to "Lighten, you will see trails start to appear.

You can select all layers and change the blending mode for all of them at the same time, but if you do have any airplane trails you want to get rid of, it will be very hard to go back and find them. Once you have all the layers set to "Lighten", you will almost be done, and have something like this:

This last step is completely optional, but I feel it adds a lot to the photo. As you went about setting each layer to lighten, you may have noticed some dark areas in your photo get lighter that you may not want, such as the mountains in the above photo, this step will mask out those areas to tone down the lighting where you don't want it.

Select one of your layers and make a copy by pressing CTRL+J (or CMD+J if you are cool and use a Mac).

Select all the layers except the one you just created, right click on them and select "Merge layers" you will now have two layers, one with star trails and one "Normal Photo".

Make sure the normal photo is the top layer, set blending mode back to "Normal" and create a layer mask ( Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All).

Using the Brush tool, paint over the sky area using black (make sure you have the mask layer selected, not the photo). This will block out the areas you paint over, leaving only the original exposure of the mountains.

You will be able to see the difference in the brightness of the mountains in the photo below:

Your photo is now done! You can flatten the image and save it in whatever format you like.

I know there are several ways you can do this, and a program that automates the process, but I really prefer the hands-on method of working layer by layer so you can make any adjustments as necessary along the way.
About the author: Richard Gottardo is a wedding photographer and storm chaser based out of Toronto, Canada. Visit his website here. This article was originally published here.

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How to Create Dazzling Star Trail Photos, From Start to Finish

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Some people have been asking for tips on how to do star trails. There seems to be a few misconceptions and a few different methods. Here's a tutorial on my personal technique. What you need: Camera (obviously) Remote shutter release (or duct tape...

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Learn star trails photography camera settings and photo editing, in this step-by-step, easy to understand tutorial, for all skill levels.

Master shutter speed, f-stop (controls aperture), and ISO, balancing the exposure triangle for night sky photography.

Table of Contents
Jump to any section on this page by clicking the following steps or scroll down to read the entire tutorial:
Step 1: Camera Equipment for Star Trails Photography

Step 2: Plan Your Shoot: Find Clear, Dark Skies and Perfect Weather

Step 3: Learn to Focus at Night

Step 4: Learn the Best Camera Settings for Star Trails Photography

Step 5: Exposure Time Settings for Star Trails, Explained

Step 6: Edit Star Trails Photos - Free Lightroom & Photoshop Videos

Camera Equipment - Star Trails Photography

Provided below are the minimum requirements to start taking star trail photos. View the brands and equipment I use and recommend on the Night Sky Photography Camera and Lens Recommendations & What's In My Camera Bag pages.

Minimum Requirements

Tripod - A well made and steady tripod is very important for star trail photography. Cheap tripods usually shake and vibrate easily, making your pictures blurry. I currently use and recommend Really Right Stuff tripods, ball heads and L-brackets.

Camera with Manual Mode Functionality - "M" or manual camera mode means you can manually, and independently adjust the Aperture, ISO, and Exposure settings on the camera.

Camera Timer / Intervalometer: A timer is essential for star trail photography. In short a camera timer / intervalometer allows you to take multiple, long exposure photos, one after another. Most cameras only allow a 30 second maximum exposure time. Star trails photography will require exposure times much longer than 30 seconds. Click Here & Type "Camera Timer" and your camera model into the search bar.

Fully Charged Batteries: Three to five fully charged batteries. You will be shooting over a time ranging from 30 minutes to 3 hours.

Wide Angle Lens ( Optional ): Star trail photography is much more forgiving than Milky Way photography. A "fast" ( number under the "f" is small ) lens is still recommended. The smaller the number under the "f", the wider the aperture in your lens will open, allowing the most light to propagate through it in the least amount of time. In turn more light will hit your camera's sensor, providing a higher quality image at night.

For full frame cameras I recommend wide angle lenses between 14-24mm and f/4 minimum aperture.

For crop sensor cameras I recommend wide angle lenses between 8-20mm and f/4 minimum aperture.

View Night Photography Camera & Lens Recommendations Table of Contents ( Next Section Below )
More Photo Tutorials: Night Photography | Milky Way | Northern Lights & Aurora

Planning Your Shoot - Star Trails Photography
Free Video Tutorials Included
Follow these quick and easy steps to start taking star trails pictures. For more detail on each section / topic reference the Scouting & Planning for Star, Milky Way, and Night Sky Photography Tutorial & Video Series.

Moon Phase & Dark, Clear Skies

Step 1 - Calculate the Moon Phase: Shooting under a 25% to full moon is ideal for star trails photography. This allows the moon to light the entire landscape which provides added foreground detail to your images. Shoot in the opposite direction of the moon, allowing your stars to be the brightest light in the sky. Use Star Date's Moon Calculator for precise results.

Step 2 - Find Dark Skies: Blue Marble Light Pollution Map - 2014 Edition is a great website for finding dark sky locations near you. Areas that are black are ideal for photographing the night sky, were white areas are light polluted and should be avoided.

Step 3 - Find Clear Skies & Predict the Weather: You will want to shoot with cloud cover percentages of 0 - 50% maximum for star trails photography. In video 1 below I teach this technique and provide more insight.
Watch Video I - Moon Phase, Dark Skies & Weather
Learn The Photographer's Ephemeris & Google Earth

Step 4 - Learn The Photographers Ephemeris ( TPE ): TPE is a great tool / app for planning moonset and moonrise times and locations for star trails photography. Learn how to use it in the video below. Get TPE For: Desktop | iPhone | Android

Step 5 - Learn to Use Google Earth / Maps: Google Earth / Maps is the best way to plan your shooting location, prior to arrival. Learn my exact techniques for photography planning with Google Earth in the video below. Get Google Earth For: Desktop | iPhone | Android
Watch Video II - Photographer's Ephemeris & Google Earth
Focusing Your Lens - Star Trails & Night Photography

You can use the same focusing methods for all kinds of night photography. I provide the best focusing techniques for night photography in my Milky Way Photography Tutorial linked below.
Click & Learn to Focus at Night
Table of Contents ( Next Section Below )
More Photo Tutorials: Night Photography | Milky Way | Northern Lights & Aurora

Camera Settings - Star Trails Photography

To be clear and concise on the camera settings for Star Trails Photography, I've provided a quick reference overview list below. In the sections that follow I'll explain the most important settings in more detail.

Here are the best camera settings for star trail photography:

Camera Mode: Manual Mode - This mode allows you to independently and manually adjust the ISO, Aperture, and Exposure time by hand.
Image Format: RAW Image Format
Metering Mode: I find Matrix Metering on my Nikon D800 to work the best for star trails photography. This is Evaluative Metering for Cannon. Test your settings to find the best fit.

White / Color Balance: Kelvin Values between 4000K-5500K work well for night photography. You'll want the color balance seen on the back of your camera ( image review ) to be as close as possible to what you see in front of you ( the landscape / night sky ). A neutral color balance such as this captures the best data for photo editing. You can adjust the color balance to anything you want, while editing star trails photos, as taught below.

Aperture Aperture: settings of f/2.8 - f/5.6 work well. The aperture setting is not as important in star trail photos as in Milky Way photos. You can experiment to see what works best. I prefer to shoot at f/2.8-f/4 for star trail shots.

Focal Length: For star trails any focal length will work. The larger the focal length (zooming in with your lens), the longer your star trails will appear over a shorter amount of time ( Reference - Selecting Exposure Time for Milky Way Photography ).

If you don't want to wait around all night to capture a star trail scene, a zoom lens will be your best choice. If you're interested in capturing a full, wide angle star trail scene showing a long star trail transition across the sky, a few hours will be required.

The best way to see this in physical form is to go out and try some test shots in the field. This will show you how different lenses or focal lengths exhibit different star trail lengths over a given period of time. Another good reference is the 500 Rule Chart & 500 Rule Equation which will show the direct correlation between star trails and focal length in a mathematical manner.
Exposure Time / Shutter Speed:
Full Frame Camera: 30 - 60 seconds works well to capture star trails per Method 1 as described below. The longer the exposure the more "far away light" your camera will capture.

A longer exposure picks up more light at a greater distance from our planet. In turn you will see stars that you wouldn't have with a shorter exposure time.

On the other hand, light sources closer to our planet will appear even brighter at longer exposure times. This applies for any type of night photography. Using a longer exposure will allow you to keep your ISO low, reducing noise, and providing a higher quality image.

Crop Sensor Camera: 30 - 120 seconds works well when shooting per the instructions provided in Method 1 below. Since crop sensor cameras don't handle high ISO as well as full frame cameras, the exposure time may need to be increased. Don't be afraid to try out 120 second exposures and see how they work using a lower ISO and in turn providing higher overall image quality.

Reference the Exposure Time Settings Section below for complete details.

ISO Settings: ISO settings for star trails photography depend on how much ambient light ( moon / light pollution ) is present in the scene you are shooting.

It works well to shoot star trails when the Moon is visible in the sky. Make sure to shoot in the opposite direction of the Moon. The Moon light allows you to capture well exposed star trail shots while keeping your ISO fairly low. Try starting at ISO 300, increasing as required to approximately ISO 800. Increase your ISO until your image is correctly exposed.

Night Photography Tip: If your shot isn't bright enough, and you can still increase your exposure time, always do this instead of increasing your ISO too far beyond 800.

ISO is the worst case method of increasing the brightness of your star trail shots since it is the only setting that degrades image quality. For those of you shooting with a crop sensor, it's best practice to stay within the range of ISO 160-500.

Trying higher ISO values such as 800 will never hurt. It's all about getting a nice exposure, without much noise.

In Camera Noise Reduction Settings: Reference my Simple & Powerful Noise Reduction for Star, Milky Way & Night Sky Photography Tutorial for complete details on why I choose each of the following settings:

Long Exposure Noise Reduction Setting - Set to Off

High ISO Noise Reduction Setting - Set to Normal

Table of Contents ( Next Section Below )
More Photo Tutorials: Night Photography | Milky Way | Northern Lights & Aurora

Exposure Time Settings - Star Trails Photography

I highly recommend Method 1 for the best quality of star trail photos. Method 2 can also be used but degrades the photo quality as described below. The following section discusses both Method 1 and Method 2, but goes into much more detail for Method 1 since it is preferred and recommended.

Method 1 - Stacking Star Trails Photos
Preferred Method
The preferred method for capturing star trail photos involves using multiple exposures, each capturing small star trails over an elapsed period of time. The star trail camera settings for each of these overlaid exposures is exactly the same. The only thing that changes is the position of the stars relative to the Earth.

Next, each of these night photography images can be batch processed in Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Camera RAW then imported into Photoshop and processed as described in the Star Trails Post Processing section below.
Why is Stacking Star Trails Images the Best Option?
Using multiple exposures will allow you to keep your exposure time and ISO fairly low, in turn reducing noise. Almost all cameras, when pushed to take very long exposures ( 3+ minutes ) start to exhibit what is known as long exposure noise.

Many cameras have a Long Exposure Noise Reduction setting ( L.E.N.R ) on them which works well, but not quite as well as using the Multiple Exposure Method 1. The L.E.N.R settings are discussed in more detail in the Method 2 Section directly below.

Selecting the Number of Exposures - Star Trail Photography

All of the topics covered in the following section are used for shooting with the Method 1 ( Preferred ): Multiple Exposures skill set since it achieves the best quality photo.

Since your location on Earth, your lens and camera model, composition, and the desired effect ( long or short trails ) will directly effect the number of exposures required, it is impossible to provide a chart showing the exact settings as was done with the 500 Rule for Milky Way Photography.

The only real way to perfect this skill set is going out and taking practice shots until you get the desired results. The number of exposures required for star trails directly correlates to the percentage of the composition that is taken up by the night sky.

Night Photography Tips: For example, if your composition is half sky and half foreground, then your stars would have to move across half of your photo to produce star trails across the entire sky.

If your composition is only ¼ night sky, and ¾ foreground, then the stars only have to move across ¼ of your photo. In turn this requires less elapsed shooting time and a smaller number of exposures.

Calculate Shooting Time - Star Trail Photography

Method 1: PhotoPills provides a nice tool within their application that will allow you to calculate the elapsed shooting time required to capture star trails for a given composition.

Method 2: Another option is to set your camera up using a timer and let it run for 3-4 hours. No matter your composition, this method will capture enough single exposures to produce some nice star trails. Most likely you will have more photos than required. These can be discarded later on.

Method 3: Trial and Error - After taking multiple star trail images with different lenses and compositions you'll start to get a good idea of what works and what doesn't. This proves to be the best overall method for perfecting star trail photography. This is the method I use most often.

Camera Timer Settings - Star Trails Photography

I highly suggest using a camera timer or intervalometer. Otherwise you will be pushing the shutter button again and again for hours. Some cameras have an interval timer mode built into them, this works as well.

After calculating the elapsed shooting time per the steps above, adjust your camera timer to mimic these settings. Input the following settings into your camera timer / intervalometer.

Star Trail Exposure Time: The length of each exposure. For example, you may choose an exposure time of 36 seconds.

Time Between Each Exposure: I would suggest using 1 second between each photo. For example, if the time between exposures was 1 second, your camera will take a photo, wait 1 second, then take the next photo. This will continue until your elapsed shooting time ( described below ) has ended.

Elapsed Shooting Time / Total Number of Exposures: The total length of time that your camera will be taking photos or the total number of photos you would like your camera to take. Since these are dependent on one another and the time between each exposure, only one needs to be input into your camera timer. For example, you may want to take 100 exposures at 30 seconds each, with 1 second between each shot.

Reference the Photo Editing - Lightroom & Photoshop Tutorials Section below for complete details on how to edit / blend these images together.

Method 2 - Single Exposure ( Second Best Option )

Another method to photograph star trails is a single long exposure, captured over a few minutes of elapsed time. In most cases single exposure star trails won't be able to transverse the entire composition of the photo. Instead, these star trails will resemble long streaks of light in the sky.
Follow these steps to try this method:

You will need to turn on your camera's Long Exposure Noise Reduction setting. Find this setting by looking in your camera instruction manual or online. Not all cameras have this setting, but nearly all full frame cameras do.

After doing so, focus your lens per the steps in the Focusing Your Lens at Night Section.

Next, select your composition and try an exposure time of 3-4 minutes with an ISO of 600-800 and take a picture.

If your picture is too dark, increase the exposure time. If your trails aren't long enough, increase the exposure time. This is all personal preference.

Increase and decrease the ISO as required if there is too much noise in the photo.

Method 2 is all about trial and error, finding which settings work best and which don't. Eventually you will start to see photos you like! That being said, USE METHOD 1 if at all possible:)
Table of Contents ( Next Section Below )
More Photo Tutorials: Night Photography | Milky Way | Northern Lights & Aurora

Photo Editing - Star Trails Photography
Lightroom & Photoshop Video Tutorials
Now that you learned how to take star trails photos, it's time to post process / edit your pictures.

I've created a free video tutorial showing you the quick and easy steps for creating star trails in Lightroom and Photoshop using Method 1 as described above.
Watch the Star Trails Photo Editing Tutorial
Start to Finish Photo Editing Video Tutorial
Watch Me Edit the Photo Below, From Start to Finish
Photograph the Night Sky eBook

My 170 page eBook, Photograph the Night Sky, teaches every skill, technique and workflow for Milky Way, Northern Lights, Moon, Star Trail and Night Sky Photography.

PDF format makes this eBook easy to take on your next shoot ( smart phone / tablet compatible ), and the step-by-step instructions guarantee great photos!

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Star Trails Photography Tutorial: Camera Settings, Equipment, Photo Editing Tips and Planning Tools

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Learn star trails photography camera settings and photo editing, in this step-by-step, easy to understand tutorial, for all skill levels. Master shutter speed, f-stop (controls aperture), and ISO, balancing the exposure triangle for night sky photography. Learn How to Edit this Exact

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I can sit outside all night and take a photo of the stars every minute with a minute shutter speed then put all of those photos together using photoshop. I will take photos multiple nights so I can have multiple finished products.

I will take the photos facing the north star so the star trails will be in a circle.