Cottage Startrails

Star trails over the cottage

This is my first attempt at star trails in quite a few years (the last was the not-wholly-successful Stars over the Lift Bridge, and all of the rest are at my Flickr Night and Stars album).

I spent a sunny but cold weekend at the family cottage. During the day, I did some extensive day hikes around Yankee Springs Recreation Area. In the evening, I opened up the cottage after a long winter of being sealed against the elements. At night, I realized that this was the perfect time for star trails -- cold, clear, and without any of the business (and lights!) of summer.

Not too bad for a 4 year break, but the cold weather killed my batteries before I could get the long trails that I like. In addition, the bright lights of the cottage caused some blow-out.

I believe that the top-to-bottom trail is an airplane (you can see when its take-off lights changed to the usual blinkers). The small slash in the middle is a meteorite, crossed by the blurry light reflected off of a moving tree branch.

If you're interested in how I take these, see two of my most popular articles: How to: A gphoto primer and Automating time lapse photos with gphoto.