First Attempt at Shooting the Stars

As the title suggests, I have never tried to seriously shoot any sort of Astro-photography before.  Most times I’m outside at the time of night required, the skies were cloudy or the conditions weren’t right.  While my family and I were camping this past weekend though, as we sat by the campfire and looked up, we saw nothing but stars.  Once the girls went to bed, I ventured down to the lake near the campground we were staying at and brought a tripod and my remote shutter cord.

Down by the lake, at Laurel Hill State Park in Pennsylvania, there was almost no man-made light to be found nearby.  The skies were clear and the stars were out in all their glory.

I had a bit of a learning curve, such as thinking I need a long exposure of a minute or more.  What I forgot however, was that the Earth is spinning around 1,000mph and that ruins any long exposure shot of the sky.  So I brought the shutter speed down to around 15-20 seconds by raising the ISO and opening the aperture.  While I’m happy with what I got, I know there is much room for improvement.  Next time I’ll be a bit more prepared.