Mt. Lemmon Star Trails II

After spending the last three and a half years studying, practicing and failing to shoot star trails, this was really the one that saw me get it at least somewhat right.

 

I took a trip on a random Monday night up to Mt. Lemmon and stopped off at a trail not far up the road to the top (I'm hesitant to say which one; I really like the area and kind of want to keep it to myself … which might be a little selfish, but I'd probably tell someone if they asked). I didn't have to walk far before I found this triumphant guy with all of his friends on this hill, facing south back toward town with the North Star right behind, just like I wanted.

 

I had a quiz the following morning, but still spent an hour exposing these shots. I later learned that I failed the quiz, but it didn't really matter when I got home and edited this together (I later found out that the lowest quiz score gets dropped, anyway :P).

 

Final composite is the trails with a foreground taken with slightly different settings to get everything just right (metadata below).

 

METADATA

Canon 7D

Sigma 10-20mm @ 10mm

Shutter speed: 30 seconds

Number of shots: 120 (roughly an hour)

Aperture: f/5.6

ISO: 100

Done