Perched as we are on top of the Fraser River Plateau in the South Cariboo, we are in a fine location for dark skies and little haze. Alas, we are not quite far enough North to see a lot of Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) displays on a regular basis - but from time to time there is a significant event and we can get some amazing light shows. We had such an event recently, and I managed to capture a few nice frames. The whole process of photographing the night sky got me interested in trying some star trails, (long exposures which show the stars movement in time). From there it was a natural progression to start thinking about capturing the Milky Way in all its glory.... Astrophotography, it turns out, is a highly technical branch of photography all unto itself; but even without investing huge sums of cash for a lot of additional equipment, it is possible to get some very nice pictures of the stars just using your basic digital camera and a tripod. If you can spring the extra $ for some sort of star tracker unit, then so much the better, but it's not mandatory in order to achieve some decent results. There are a few different units available that won't cost you and arm and a leg. More about these things in the near future, as I will attempt to describe the whole process and perhaps review the Ioptron Skytracker, which I now have. :P
Pic below is a single exposure, 8 seconds f2.8, ISO 1600, 24mm.
Star Trails - multiple images stacked. In the Northern Hemisphere, the stars rotate around Polaris, (the North Star) so over time the stars appear to be turning in a circle. In actual fact, of course, it is we who are spinning.