Photographing The Big Dipper

A couple of nights ago I was coming home from a fun dance when I realized that the sky could not be any more clear. I had no real plans for any photos that night, but I went out to try a few things. After I made this photo I couldn’t help buy think that I should have found a better foreground. The trees in my backyard would have to do. This year I would like to try more of this type of photography. I have much bigger plans that may show up at some point on the blog.

Pivot!

My original idea was to play around with my star tracker again to make a stacked photo of Orion. For some reason I just cannot get sharp stars when using the tracker. I can change variables that streak the stars, but I cannot make photos that are worthy of being stacked. My stars come out cone shaped for some reason. When I realized that things were not going my way, and I couldn’t fix it I quickly pivoted to the photo that you see above. As I was waiting for my exposures I kept looking to my left to admire the big dipper. I knew that I could capture it pretty easy in one exposure so I wanted to end the night with a win. I am far from done with my star tracker. Part of the fun of photography is problem solving. This is a big problem, but that will make the first good photos so much more enjoyable.