Last night I stayed up late and played around with my digital camera, laptop computer and EOS Utility software that controls the camera via the computer. The result is this star trails photo with Polaris at the center. Locating Polaris is no small feat with all the light pollution around. But, with the help of some astronomy/star gazing iPhone apps, it was easy to find, even if I couldn't actually see it.

The photo is made up of 240 photos taken over two hours on my Canon EOS 500D (Rebel T1i) and merged together with Photoshop CS5 using the import command: File - Scripts - Statistics - Stack Mode: Maximum. After quite a bit of experimentation I found that there were a lot of camera setting combinations that would produce workable results. So, by no means am I saying what I used is best (I know, unusual for me), it is just what worked for me: f/2.8, 20mm focal length, ISO 200, 20 second exposure, taken 30 seconds apart.

There was quite a bit of light pollution on the horizon so I couldn't aim lower. The objects on the lower right are beams from our pergola which prevented me from aiming farther right. And, since I did it really, really, late at night, there are no airplane trails. All and all, I'm very pleased with the outcome.