After a failed Supermoon mission In Middelburg together with @dboontje, I noticed a post on Facebook. The post was mentioning that the week after our trip to Middelburg we had another event upcoming. It was the meteor shower called Lyrids. Once a year this meteor shower is visible for approx. 10 days at the starry skies. Immediately I sent Dennis a message and we agreed we needed this to enjoy another night out with our cameras as some kind of isolation. The day before we had a call, the weather conditions were looking just perfect! Wait… weren’t they perfect with that supermoon plan either? We decided to give it a go.
 |
|---|
We both searched for some dark spots in our area. The Netherlands have a lot of light pollution, so it isn’t easy to find a spot in the area around you. But we did succeed with some help from websites like Light Polution Map. Dennis did find the spot in Veere (normally a very touristic place, now with the quarantine very quiet and peaceful). As a backup spot we decided to go to Westkapelle if there was to much light pollution in Veere. But once we arrived there it was just perfect!
Every night you can spot some shooting stars with some luck. But on a night with a lot of shooting stars it’s called a meteor shower. The Lyrids for tonight was the best visible if we did look at the sky in the south/south east. Funny fact about the Lyrids is that people did notice them already for thousands of years. According to Nasa the first recorded sighting goes back to 687BC by the Chinese.
 |
 |
|---|---|
| Photopills homework | When your tripod isn't high enough😎 |
We didn’t expect a spectacular show, but I can tell it was beautiful to watch. I think we did encounter around the 20 shooting stars the first hour. Talking about that first hour… I learned the hard way that Nikon made a mess about their implementation of longer shutter times. The idea in my head was to create a startrail. Never created one before and it was still on my list to create a perfect trail image. So, I did my homework and did watch some YouTube videos about creating startrail images. I was prepared for a wonderful night with a show full of stars.
So while I found a nice composition, I did configure the intervalmeter in my camera. With this option the camera will take pictures with a shutter time of 30 seconds and 2 seconds pause in between shots. This way the camera would have some time to write the pictures to my memory cards. This is only theory, because while waiting for a series of 100 pictures (a bit more than a hour of waiting time) I had to find out my camera didn’t write any picture to the memory card🤣🙈 Next day I found out that Nikon their 30 seconds are actually more like 32 seconds. This way my camera didn’t have enough time to write the picture to the memory card… Oops!
Lucky for me I did get some good test shots to get my composition right. Pretty happy with the outcome of those but wish I had that startrail picture 😅 Well better luck next time!
 |
|---|
| The best picture from this night |
How did I manage to get these pictures?
Because the earth is rotating, and you will be shooting with longer exposures the stars will change to longer stripes instead of dots. The longer the focal length from your lens the shorter maximum shutter time you can use. To get the visible stars as dots in your image there is a formula to calculate the maximum shutter time you can use. The formula is known as the rule of 400. By this rule you need to multiply the focal length with the crop factor of your camera. Then you need the divide outcome by 400.
Some examples:
- 24mm at a 1.5x crop camera (Nikon DX)
400/(241.5)= 11 seconds max- 24mm at a full frame camera (Nikon FX)
400/(241)=16.5 seconds max (better to round this down to 16)You don’t want your ISO to be to high, because you’ll capture a lot of light pollution and create additional noise in your image. You need to test this for your own taste/camera sensor to a level you like the amount of noise. The noise can be reduced by taking multiple pictures and use a technique called stacking. I can write a short tutorial about this if you want to know something about this technique? I wanted to use the same technique to create my star trail in Photoshop. I could use the bulb function on the camera and leave the shutter open for hour(s). But this will increase noise levels. So that’s why I wanted to shoot multiple exposures for the star trail.
Extending our isolation time
During the night the show ended, and Dennis and I tried to capture some other night images. Just to use our isolation time to the max. We were practicing a lot and before we knew the sunrise was almost there. That’s why we decided to wait and capture some colorful images during the sunrise. After this we did drink some coffee and called it a night and went home. I hope you enjoyed the pictures!
PS. As you might have heard, I'm not 100% healthy at the moment. A reply at a comment can take a while. Sorry in advance for that... ?
Steemmonster Guild
We're a group of players who love the game and are waiting for the upcoming feature the guild wars. Surfingnomad is a guild where you decide how much you play and donate. Why donate? To grow our guild we need to raise a certain amount of DEC and Daily Quests to reach higher levels. When we reach the higher levels you will earn extra DEC rewards in ranked play but also get discounts in the shop. These discounts and extra DEC rewards depends on the level of the guild. Would you like to join us on the battlefields?
POSH on Twitter
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://surfingnomad.nl/travel/photography-shooting-star-here-you-are-the-first-time-you-fly-by/ - 24mm at a full frame camera (Nikon FX)
Thanks @photofeed! Really appreciated 🙃
Love the picture with the milky way! Looks like a great shot :) Make sure you don't miss out the perseids, you will get plenty of spectacular shots!
Perseids are here during summer (July/August) correct?, and normally we have a lot of light pollution during these months. But if tourists stay away the lights might be shut off as well this year. That would give a extra opportunity if the weather coops again😎 Thanks for the tip!
Yes, the end of July and beginning of August, but they are the most visible in August
Stunning photo! Well done
Thank you! :)
Cheers!
Congratulations, your post has been added to Pinmapple! 🎉🥳🍍
Did you know every user has their own profile map?
And so does every post as well!
Want to have your post on the map too?
I didn't know the rule of 400, thanks! Actually I don't know much about shooting stars. I just put the camera on the tripod and try not to exceed the 30'shutter speed. And yes the stars usually are lines, not dots and the noise is terrible :)
If you do write a tutorial about stacking I'll be glad to read it!
The picture is amazing, even without the star-trail (I should do my homework too and try one of those myself) and the sunrise pictures are super :)
Cheers!
Neither do I know a lot about shooting stars, but I find it quite relaxed. You don't need to hurry to catch the golden hour in time etc. 😅
At the moment finishing my post about Kinderdijk (another phototrip together with @dboontje we had in the same week as we did shoot the stars). After that I'll try to create a post with my explanation for stacking and the things you can do with it.
Congratulations @guchtere! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
You can view your badges on your board and compare to others on the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPDo not miss the last post from @hivebuzz: