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How did this happen?

© Lyndel Reese

How did this happen?

Uploaded: October 07, 2002

Description

Why are there dots at the end of trails?

Comments

March 05, 2003

Exposing film/slides of the night sky is somewhat straightforward...
Longer exposures gather more light; more light means more white in a dark sky.
Two things should become apparent.

1. a stationary camera will expose solid streaks on the film.
2. a tracking camera will expose brighter and bigger points of light if moving at/or near sidereal rate (speed which stars move across the sky)

My thoughts are the streaks occurred due to camera being stationary (or much slower than sidereal) and the dots indicate movement around the pole's axis at/or near sidereal for a short period of time (maybe 1-3 min)

Where you on some sort of a drive or equatorial mount which you guided?

Also, the exposure doesn't look to hot.

Lyndel, photographing the stars is a challenge worth it's time.

Tootles...
#25267

Lyndel Reese May 26, 2019

Thanks
You have confirmed what I have said from the start and helped settle a bet. With no info what so ever you came to the same conclusion I did.
This was taken on a double barn door drive with a stepper motor running it.
The side reel rate was too slow and produced both trails and a bright dot at the end of each trail.
The exposure is much better on the original slide than my scanner will allow me to show in a scan. Pentax 645, 45mm lens at f/2.8, Kodak 400 Slide, for 8 minutes.
Thanks Gene
#63901

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