I woke up around 2am today. Decided to wander outside and what did I see? The first clear night in weeks! Time to practice my night sky photography. Did a series of long exposure shots (30 seconds, ISO 800, f/3.5) but could not get the focus right. This is one of the hardest things for me about shooting the night sky. Auto-focus doesn’t work, you can’t see anything through the viewfinder, and your focus has to be perfectly on infinity. Anyway, after 40 minutes of trying in 32 degree weather I gave up. Looked at my blurry star shots and thought “Hey! What if I merge all of these exposures?” This is the result. I think I like it better than the properly focused night sky shot I was trying to get. I hope you like it – now I’m going back to bed.
Tau Zero 
Pretty neat and hope you got some sleep!
Love it! I have always wondered how to take those night ‘swirly stars’ photos. I guess the first step is waking up at 2am…
Innovation, have to love it!
2am, that’s dedication to your art. We get some clear skies here but the street lights kill any chance of photos 😦
Great experiment. Nice sparkly skies. This is one I have never tried. Thanks for the inspiration.
Shots like these are a blast, aren’t they? I made a few last summer and am looking forward to shooting some more as it warms up. The 30 second ones are fun, but for some real fun shoot on bulb mode with a timer and leave the exposure going for 30 minutes or more!
Thanks – I’m planning to try some longer exposures when the weather here gets a little warmer.
Very inspirational indeed! I love the colours, nice post.
very lovely- I think all the more magical for it’s ‘imperfections’. the colours are beautiful