P A Я T H A
TERRA FIRMA ROTAZION, TSO MORIRI
Terra Firma Rotazion.
This photo is for my buddy Subho (Subharnab).
Taking a star trail was one photograph that I wanted to do in my Ladakh trip. Shubo had told me to take at least one over Panggong Tso. Well Panggong Tso was a different story for me, but this was in Tso Moriri. I had heard and read that the night skies in Ladakh are crystal clear. I have never seen so many stars, ever in my life. Never ever seen a galaxy with the naked eye before. Billions oh Billions and Billions of them. I wish i knew a little about astronomy, it would have been a delight. Had i knew that every minute i would see a shooting star i would have written down all my wishes from Bangalore. Some time its like the Diwali Fire works. We said about the wish stuff to Parvez and he had only one wish, "No more floods in Leh and Ladakh". Incidentally India's best astronomical observatory is located in Ladakh and Hanley (You need special permit to go to Hanley).
So what's the story about getting a perfect circle with circular lines among them. NORTH STAR !!
North Star had been the source for navigation for mariners as long as people have been sailing. Remember Caesar Saying "I am as constant as the north star of whose true-fixed and resting quality there is no fellow in the firmament.". When i was preparing for the start trail in Bangalore, i was amused to read that the star that we called North star gets changed after every 26,000 years. At present the North star is Polaris. So North star has been used for centuries to determine the longitude. Since the North Star is fixed in the horizon any celestial body around it would move in a circular fashion. All these for Northern hemisphere. For the southern hemisphere there is a South Pole Star too.
How do you locate North star ? its simple to locate. Its on the Northern sky. if you are an oldie like me, refer to this link everything2.com/title/How+to+locate+Polaris%252C+the+Nort... (While reading about the North Star before my journey to Ladakh, i was surprised to know that Ursa Major (Great Bear), Casseopeia were the only constellation that i knew). The geeky way is to use Samsung Galaxy andriod phone Starmap/starwalk etc.
The most difficult part of shooting the Star trail is to get the right orientation of the stars in the frame. This photo was taken during waning phase of the moon. That day moon rise was past midnight so i had some 2-3 hours to shoot this after dusk (Moon light spoils the frame for star trail). It's often difficult to get the frame orientation. I wish that my composition has a few trees on the ridge or may be some silhouette. That makes the picture very interesting.
Shooting : During dusk i had my tripod and camera set. I did use my compass to get the correct north direction and kind of got the frame that i wanted to shoot. Not choosing to shoot in Landscape mode was intentional because i was expecting the ambient light from the tents and ITBP (Indo Tibetan Border Police) camp. A couple of test shot and then 8 frames shot over 90 minutes amidst subzero temperature and crazy wind (I do not know how my friend Sankar Sridhar manages chadar trek every year and -25 degree centigrade and with another -10 to -15 degree of wind chill). The fingers goes numb. For the last 5 shots i went out of the tent for a minute to press the shutter release cable and then bumped into the tent below the quilt. I did not face any battery drain out issue. I wanted to do a 30 frame star trail beyond mid night, but had to give up as my nose was dripping, hand numb and almost frozen (yet there was no snow fall).
Post processing : This comprises of 8 raw frames each having 4 minute exposure @ ISO 100, with noise reduction on. The frames converted to JPEG and then was joined by software from www.startrails.de (Amazing FREE software). I did cropping of lower half of the frame, multi-layered curve adjustment so as to bring out the maximum number of stars, adjusting the sharpness of the image and decreasing the lens glare. (See each of this star has 8 dots)
Why b/w ? Some times presentation makes all the difference of the picture. Behind the ridge there is the ITBP camp which had some light and that strayed into the frame. The vapor lamps made the frame reddish. I had to crop a little bit of the lower half of the frame so that some of the other light emanating sources gets chopped off.
Can i shoot a star trail from my city ?
You have to move at least 100-200 KM from any of the major metro's to get a clear sky. The ambient light is too strong for camera to capture the stars. At Least in Bangalore i can hardly see a couple of stars in the sky.
TERRA FIRMA ROTAZION, TSO MORIRI
Terra Firma Rotazion.
This photo is for my buddy Subho (Subharnab).
Taking a star trail was one photograph that I wanted to do in my Ladakh trip. Shubo had told me to take at least one over Panggong Tso. Well Panggong Tso was a different story for me, but this was in Tso Moriri. I had heard and read that the night skies in Ladakh are crystal clear. I have never seen so many stars, ever in my life. Never ever seen a galaxy with the naked eye before. Billions oh Billions and Billions of them. I wish i knew a little about astronomy, it would have been a delight. Had i knew that every minute i would see a shooting star i would have written down all my wishes from Bangalore. Some time its like the Diwali Fire works. We said about the wish stuff to Parvez and he had only one wish, "No more floods in Leh and Ladakh". Incidentally India's best astronomical observatory is located in Ladakh and Hanley (You need special permit to go to Hanley).
So what's the story about getting a perfect circle with circular lines among them. NORTH STAR !!
North Star had been the source for navigation for mariners as long as people have been sailing. Remember Caesar Saying "I am as constant as the north star of whose true-fixed and resting quality there is no fellow in the firmament.". When i was preparing for the start trail in Bangalore, i was amused to read that the star that we called North star gets changed after every 26,000 years. At present the North star is Polaris. So North star has been used for centuries to determine the longitude. Since the North Star is fixed in the horizon any celestial body around it would move in a circular fashion. All these for Northern hemisphere. For the southern hemisphere there is a South Pole Star too.
How do you locate North star ? its simple to locate. Its on the Northern sky. if you are an oldie like me, refer to this link everything2.com/title/How+to+locate+Polaris%252C+the+Nort... (While reading about the North Star before my journey to Ladakh, i was surprised to know that Ursa Major (Great Bear), Casseopeia were the only constellation that i knew). The geeky way is to use Samsung Galaxy andriod phone Starmap/starwalk etc.
The most difficult part of shooting the Star trail is to get the right orientation of the stars in the frame. This photo was taken during waning phase of the moon. That day moon rise was past midnight so i had some 2-3 hours to shoot this after dusk (Moon light spoils the frame for star trail). It's often difficult to get the frame orientation. I wish that my composition has a few trees on the ridge or may be some silhouette. That makes the picture very interesting.
Shooting : During dusk i had my tripod and camera set. I did use my compass to get the correct north direction and kind of got the frame that i wanted to shoot. Not choosing to shoot in Landscape mode was intentional because i was expecting the ambient light from the tents and ITBP (Indo Tibetan Border Police) camp. A couple of test shot and then 8 frames shot over 90 minutes amidst subzero temperature and crazy wind (I do not know how my friend Sankar Sridhar manages chadar trek every year and -25 degree centigrade and with another -10 to -15 degree of wind chill). The fingers goes numb. For the last 5 shots i went out of the tent for a minute to press the shutter release cable and then bumped into the tent below the quilt. I did not face any battery drain out issue. I wanted to do a 30 frame star trail beyond mid night, but had to give up as my nose was dripping, hand numb and almost frozen (yet there was no snow fall).
Post processing : This comprises of 8 raw frames each having 4 minute exposure @ ISO 100, with noise reduction on. The frames converted to JPEG and then was joined by software from www.startrails.de (Amazing FREE software). I did cropping of lower half of the frame, multi-layered curve adjustment so as to bring out the maximum number of stars, adjusting the sharpness of the image and decreasing the lens glare. (See each of this star has 8 dots)
Why b/w ? Some times presentation makes all the difference of the picture. Behind the ridge there is the ITBP camp which had some light and that strayed into the frame. The vapor lamps made the frame reddish. I had to crop a little bit of the lower half of the frame so that some of the other light emanating sources gets chopped off.
Can i shoot a star trail from my city ?
You have to move at least 100-200 KM from any of the major metro's to get a clear sky. The ambient light is too strong for camera to capture the stars. At Least in Bangalore i can hardly see a couple of stars in the sky.