Star trails

This winter has gone too quickly. I had high hopes of getting some new star trails photos this year but here we are in April with proper darkness now only available for less than 2 weeks! I’ve had a few attempts this winter but every time I’ve had the time (if you know what I mean) it’s been cloudy or raining and every time it’s been crystal clear I’ve been otherwise occupied. So I’ve only got a couple of attempts this year and I’m going to have to wait another year for another serious attempt.

In the meantime, here are a couple of versions that I took the other night. As so often is the case it started off clear (though seeing wasn’t perfect with some very thin high cloud) so I set the camera up and left it. Unfortunately after only about 45 minutes or so cloud began to roll in, little scuds at first then bigger blotches. It soon became clear (!) that there would be no more startrails, because the stars were disappearing, so I brought the camera in and downloaded the images. Here are the results, one with all the clouds and the other with some clouds removed – in that one you might just see a satellite streak.

Despite the clouds I think both are quite pleasing results in their own way. What do you think?

Star trails with cloud, Lerwick, Shetland

Star trails with a few clouds and a satellite, Lerwick, Shetland