wow! these are fanastic!!

Thanks Snapper

The light pollution wasn't really an issue to be honest. The long exposure time allows much more light to be captured by the camera than the naked eye can see, so a lot of the orangey glow wasn't actually visible to me.
Also, the light blue glows, are actually where the sun has set and is bouncing off the upper atmosphere....again, not visible to me with the naked eye, yet the camera picks it up nicely.

I quickly learned that focusing the camera on different areas of the sky, would give me a different coloured hue to the overall picture. Above the town I get orangey...above the sunset I get blues...and somewhere in between the two gives me that lovely purple tinge.

These images are all straight from camera too...only resized and converted to jpg

Thanks John

I'm really glad you like them

Really nice shots MD, especially #1 Ursa Major (the great bear) and #2 the Pleiades (seven sisters)

Great pics Can't decide on my favourite out of them all

Great shots - I keep meaning to try some night shots.

Strange how you say only some of the stars were giving 'trails' - I guess some of the nearer stars 'move' accross the sky quicker ??

Thanks Phil.
I dunno what was going on...but it wasn't just 1 or 2 stars...it was all of them!

Some shots at 30 sec exposure were fine, other shots had slight trails. I can't quite figure it out. It was a fairly still night, but I suppose the slightest breeze against the camera could cause this effect.

Thanks DJ.
I managed to get a few other constellations too, which I may post in the next few days.

I also tried to get our very own Milky Way, but with varying results



















For this one, the camera is pointing straight up.
The streak in this picture isn't a shooting star...just incase anyone was wondering. It is in fact a passing satellite. For those who don't know...the reason it streaks is because that's the path it travelled during the length of time the exposure was taken.
I think this was a 30 second exposure, so the satelite took 30 seconds to travel the length of that streak!
Does that make any sense at all???
I think I took around 50 or 60 of these "Starscapes" and around 60% of them had satellite trails in them. Some of them even had two or three!!!

Let's just hope they ARE satellites

It depends on which part of the sky you are shooting. If you shoot Polaris (the North star/pole star) , which is between the big dipper (Ursa major constelation) and Cassiopeia (which is shaped like a "W") you would not see any trails on Polaris itself, but you would see longer trails the further away from Polaris the stars are. So, Polaris does not move since it is In line with Earth's North pole.

Ah of course - Polaris (the North Star) doesn't move as such - the rest rotate around it so you get more movement the further away form the 'hub' you go.

Lovely shots MD, 3's my fave