As mentioned in a previous post, I now have a tracker mounted on my tripod (iOptron SkyTracker). With this gadget, I can take longer exposures of the night sky without star trails. Exposures of 30 to 120 seconds typically give me the best results. Shorter exposures don’t gather enough light and the longer exposures may show a hint of star trails.

There was an evening a bit over a week ago with mostly clear skies. Very thin cirrus clouds were moving across the area. I was unable to see them while photographing but inspection of satellite imagery at the time showed that there was some high-altitude moisture moving across the area. The result? The thin clouds produced a faint glow around the brighter stars in the constellation Orion. I like the result.