Nice little movie you made there.
I haven't made any myself so can't comment much on that side of things.
Quote:
|
When I hit the remote it took 25 seconds to shoot. Does this mean that it took 25 seconds to collect enough light?
|
In auto-mode, yes. The camera probably needed 25 seconds for enough light to register on the sensor. These cameras though aren't well tuned for astrophotography in auto-mode so going manual as you mentioned is your best option.
Quote:
|
Are the stars so blurry in this photo because it was very windy? I know that we see stars as "twinkling" because the powerful winds in the atmosphere shakes their light around.
|
The twinkling is because of atmospheric conditions, including wind. I would guess that your stars are a little blurry because the focus is a little off.
I used to use a Nikon D40 (not the 'x' though) and found that focusing was the most difficult part of all. The infinity mark on many lenses is not accurate so don't rely on it. Here's what I'd do...
Get focused first- Put everything on manual, including focus
- Make the aperture wide open (smaller f number)
- Set the exposure for around 30 seconds
- Set the ISO for around 1600
- Take a single shot of a bright star (sirius is a good one)
- Preview the result and zoom in on the viewfinder to check the focus
- Adjust the focus very very slightly and try again
- Keep going until you get a nice sharp focused image of that star
Tuning for your shot
Now, once you've got it focused nicely, point it to the area you want to shoot without moving the focuser on the lens.
Try a few practice shots playing with the ISO level and exposure time.
The higher the ISO the more sensitive the sensor will be to light coming in. This means you can use shorter exposures. BUT the higher the ISO the more "noisy" the final image will be. It's about finding a nice balance.
The longer the exposure the more star trails you will get (as the stars move through the sky). Going much longer than 30 seconds will require tracking or a fancy mount or something like that so try to stick to around 30secs.
Go for it
Now you're ready to do your multiple shots.
Looking at your video, your previous timings seemed to work well so keep at it.
Cheers,
Carl