Red Planet Vortex Star Trails

Now for something completely different. There are 3 ways to achieve vortex star trails though all require some sort of composite because otherwise the foreground is distorted.

1) In camera, yes it can be done. This requires that you build a device attached to a motor and gears to grab the zoom ring and make tiny changes to the zoom through a sequence of star field shots. Nobody sells such a device so only DIY. For me, no way, my mechanical abilities are zilch.

2) Take a sequence of star trail images over an hour or two and then in software shrink the image as each layer is added to duplicate the in camera zooming using either Photoshop actions or a script.

3) Take one image of a star field and again use software to duplicate and shrink to get the effect. For this image I went for number 3 using a Photoshop Script which can be downloaded free from liketheocean.com/night-photography/scripts-to-make-your-s...

 

To get my star field I used a single image taken for a standard star trails shot in nearby Arundel a few years ago. As there were not enough stars for the best effect I used copy of selections to a new image and cloning to get a denser star field and leave out the foreground. The script was run after selecting vortex. The foreground was taken in Lanzarote on a coach tour round the National Park where no other vehicles are allowed. The area shown in the image is appropriately enough called Tranquillity valley. The foreground was layered onto the star trails and combined using a layer mask and brush and a selection for precision

 

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Done