Time lapse with a twist

[feppe]

Twist.

No twist.

[bill t.]

Nice one.  Now they need to shoot one shot every night at midnight for a year with the camera pointed at the celestial pole and corrected for rotation.

[RFPhotography]

Terje does amazing work.  Truly stunning stuff.

I've seen the 'twist' video before.  Maybe not that one but the technique.  An inexpensive tracking mount on a tripod should allow pretty much anyone to do it, no?

[feppe]

Terje does amazing work.  Truly stunning stuff.

I've seen the 'twist' video before.  Maybe not that one but the technique.  An inexpensive tracking mount on a tripod should allow pretty much anyone to do it, no?

I'm not familiar with astrophotography gear, but you probably need pitch/yaw/roll for those time lapses, and it has to be timed and directed perfectly. I'd do quick googling to see what's available but that's frowned upon here

[RFPhotography]

That's what the tracking heads to.  They're made for telescopes but people have modded them for photography use to do things like timelapse pans or sweeps.

[bill t.]

To do the rotating Earth thing you need something called an "equatorial mount."  It causes the camera to roll with the sky.

The other type of mount is called "altitude-azimuth" or "alt-az" which can track individual objects in the sky, but unless it is placed on a special tilted mount it can't do the horizon trick right, the horizon will just appear to move up and down while the stars rotate around wherever the camera is pointed.  Which could also be interesting.

The ones that can be adapted for pan-tilt work are alt-az.

[tom b]

I'm always amused by people saying they have a rock steady tripod. Take these facts:

The Earth rotates or spins at over 1000 miles per hour, taking 24 hours, our day, to make one rotation.

The Earth revolves around our star “The Sun,” at 30 kilometers a second or 67,000 miles per hour, taking one year to make one revolution.

Our solar system revolves around the galaxy at 885,139 kilometers per second or 550,000 miles per hour, taking 225 million years to make one rotation around the galaxy.

But then again everything is relative.

Cheers,

[David Sutton]

But then again everything is relative.

Cheers,

Including that statement? 

[Rob C]

I'm always amused by people saying they have a rock steady tripod. Take these facts:

The Earth rotates or spins at over 1000 miles per hour, taking 24 hours, our day, to make one rotation.

The Earth revolves around our star “The Sun,” at 30 kilometers a second or 67,000 miles per hour, taking one year to make one revolution.

Our solar system revolves around the galaxy at 885,139 kilometers per second or 550,000 miles per hour, taking 225 million years to make one rotation around the galaxy.

But then again everything is relative.

Cheers,

Tom, that's why perfecty tuned tripods are so expensive for what's not a lot more than three tin sticks and a bolt.

Rob C