Chapter 5: Shooting star trails (2)
2) Shooting the celestial equator:
Image 1 represents the celestial equator as shot from on of the two hemispheres, away from earth’s equator. The diagonal and almost straight line passing almost through the middle of the image from bottom to top is the celestial equator.
Image 2 has been shot from Ecuador, South America. The state lies at such a location so that the earth’s equator passes through it. Thus, facing the camera either west or east gives almost perfectly straight lines that track the apparent movement of the stars. They form these lines that look like latitudes all around the sky. Here, the earth’s equator is almost collinear and parallel to celestial equator.
Shooting such an image is not very different from shooting any of the poles. For shooting something like image 1, just point the camera towards east or west of you’re away from the earth’s equator. For shooting something like image 2, shoot either east or west with your location being as close to the earth’s equator as possible.
All other camera settings remain the same, aperture minimum, shutter as per requirement, and ISO minimum. Set up the intervalometer and take large amount of photos to get good results.
3) Shooting the poles, from celestial equator:
The images above are taken from Ecuador as well. Both the celestial poles are barely visible as they are close to the horizon due to the location being very near to the earth’s equator. Being close to the Earth’s equator, the distance towards both the poles is almost equal. The 1st image represents southern celestial pole as shot from the earth’s equator, the 2nd image represents northern celestial pole as shot from the earth’s equator. An important thing to note is that both the trails will extend in opposite directions, with the ones moving clockwise being the southern direction and the ones moving anticlockwise being the northern, as seen from the earth’s equator.
All other camera settings remain the same, aperture minimum, shutter as per requirement, and ISO minimum. Set up the intervalometer and take large amount of photos to get good results.
In the upcoming chapters, advanced star trail photography will be defined and followed by editing of basic and advanced star trails respectively.
