Four hours.

Couldn't understand why my EM1iii (Beastie) was only doing 30 minute star trails when I knew it should be possible to record for a full battery - potentially 6 hours. Thought I was doing something wrong. Ploughed through the "how to" book and asked for help from someone who knows his way round Olympus cameras.
Thanks to Mark, I was able to change an odd default setting from 30 minutes to maximum - result a full 4 hours in the cold of star trails.
Beastie was pointed at Orion and left to play, lens wrapped in a dew heater to prevent condensation.
Very, very pleased with the result.
110122EM1iii120122

[Thom Mitchell]

Beau. Ti. Ful!
This is exactly my temptation to try some ‘astrophotography,’ but I don’t know where, or how far, I’d have to go to find a sufficiently-dark environment.

[Jesika]

@rhoing thank you. York isn’t blessed with dark skies, sadly, but I suppose it’s much better than the big cities. Camera sees more than our eyes of course. You’ve nothing to loose by pointing your camera to the sky and hoping - don’t know what you use of course, but the Olympus cameras do all the hard work for you, cleverly stacking each shot on top of those that went before. Editing software not needed for stacking.
I’m hoping for a clear sky tonight so we can try to do the full circle around Polaris which conveniently lives above my chimney!

[Fisher Family]

Very nicely done - fav!

Ian

[Jesika]

@fishers thank you. Sky is supposed to be clear tonight so I hope to try an all night exposure using an external power pack instead of battery. I’ve seen a 12 hr exposure with the same camera lens and was very impressed. Of course it wasn’t shot in the suburbs…