Star Trails

Liam (our 15 month old son) woke up last night around... well, right at 2:18. I think he had a bit of a stomach ache, so I just had to hold him for a while and comfort him as his tummy pain went away. Finally he fell asleep and now it was my turn to go back to sleep. On my way back upstairs, I noticed it was REALLY bright outside. I stepped out to see if we got a new street light installed or something, but it was just from an incredibly bright and full moon. The temperature was perfect and suddenly I didn't feel like sleeping! There were a million stars in the sky and a huge bright moon! How could I sleep? I had to try and capture this! So I went in and grabbed my camera and the wide angle. My goal was to get a star trail shot (which I had never done or even researched). I didn't want to set up the tripod and the remote and do it all proper like, so... I just set the ISO at 200, shut the aperture all the way down (I think it was 22), and then set the shutter to bulb. Next laid belly down on the driveway and laid my camera on it's back with the neck strap bunched up behind the eyepiece to protect the screen. I got comfortable and was in it for the long haul. 20 minutes of manually holding the shutter down to try and create the star trails. Bear in mind this was my first attempt and under the circumstances I think it turned out pretty well! There's some things I'll do different next time, like shoot on a night when the moon isn't illuminating the entire sky. But other than that, I'm pretty happy with it!

~Nate