Quote:
Originally Posted by kinetic
The only downside I would say is the wear and tear on a DSLR...
a lot of shutter actuations may reduce your DSLR lifespan 
Steve
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Personally I wouldn't worry too much about wear and tear. If you take 60 x 30 sec exposures I don't think it's all that much more than taking 6 x 300sec exposures considering most new DSLRs are rated for 100,000+ actuations, with top end ones 300,000+, which I think really are minima and have heard of actual actuations 2-3 times these with not many problems. So as far as I'm concerned a few hundred photos to capture hours of star trails is nothing. And by the time you wear it out you would have got your money's worth and you'll be looking at buying an updated model anyway!
Also in regard to the initial post, if you expose for 10mins you will get purple glow in the corners in most DSLRs due to the sensor heating up thus causing noise in the image. This is why we take several short exposures and add them together with software, and hence the need for a good intervalometer to make the task automated.
Wayne