In my ongoing quest to caputre long star trails, I made another attempt last nigh. This time, I tried an hour long exposure with the big dipper just above th trees and moving upward. It would have been a lovely shot. I let the shutter stay open for an hour and then closed it. All was well at this point. However, the camera has that really nifty feature of long exposure noise reduction that kicks in after a long shot. It came on and I waited for the shot to de-noise. About 15 or so minutes into the de-noising exposure [I can’t remember how long, but it was at least 15 but no more than 30 minutes] I noticed that the camera “busy” light was not on anymore. I checked the camera and discovered that my battery was completely dead. I lost the shot.
For my next attempt, I will put in a freshly charged battery to try again. The one I was using I had taken a good amount of shots with, so I don’t know how close it was to it’s charge capacity. If I can’t do an hour exposure with a fresh battery, I may try and get the “battery grip” expansion that allows me to put in two batteries at once and extending the exposure life past that 1.5 hour maximum that I’ve hit. Or, even better, I could try the external power adapter.
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