Photographing the night sky

LiquidChaos66

So I will be in Rachel Nevada this coming summer and have planned it around the phase of the new moon. I will have PITCH BLACK country/desert land and will get a KILLER view of the stars and UFOs. lol I have an old digital camera (like 5 years old digital camera... I might talk family or a friend into letting me borrow something fancy for the trip)

How do you photograph the night sky? I know I can google this but I much prefer first hand advice and experience from people than what I get off google. lol

avengethis

First thing is you need a good sturdy tripod, second you need a camera that lets you run what is called a bulb exposure, third a remote shutter release.

The remote shutter release will allow you to trigger the shutter without actually hitting the camera so you dont have any movement on the camera, the bulb setting works that you hit the shutter release once to open the shutter and then you hit it again to close it.  I have used this to take a 3 hour long exposure of the nighttime sky on a very low iso and high aperature so I had the maximum depth of field and reduce the noise. 

LiquidChaos66

How long should the shutter remain open to get a really good bright picture of the stars?

raisindot

If it's going to be a long exposure (like hours), you may need a motorized tripod that "turns" in the same speed and direction as the stars moving in an arc in the sky. Otherwise, you're likely to get 'streaks" of the star trails in your images. Or, at least, that's what photographers with telescopes need to do.