Stacks of star trail photos that are clearly fake are driving me nuts

I keep seeing these star trail images where every single star has a perfect circular arc from horizon to horizon. Unless you're at the North Pole, that's not how physics works. Last week someone posted one from Arizona with zero distortion near the edges and claimed it was a single 6 hour exposure. A real 6 hour shot would have major light pollution issues and battery drain that nobody mentions. I know lightroom blending is legit for composites, but pretending a stitched stack is a single exposure is lying. Has anyone else noticed how many of these are just poorly masked sky overlays?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_simon20d ago

Yeah that's fair actually... I used to think stacking was the only way to get decent star trails but you're right about the distortion thing. Kinda opened my eyes to how much fakery is out there.

karen36120d ago

My buddy actually tried a 6 hour single exposure once in Oregon and the battery died at hour 4, so he just posted the 4 hour stack and called it a night. @the_simon that's the thing though, once you see the fake arcs it's hard to unsee them.

emmaclark20d ago

That Arizona one you mentioned got me wondering though... what's the endgame for people who post obviously fake star trails? Like are they trying to sell prints or just farming likes. Because I've seen the same setup where someone will composite a moon shot into a star trail too and call it "one night of photography" which is just... no. The masking tells on itself every time with that soft glow around the edges where they didn't feather properly. Do you think most of these people even know the arcs are wrong or do they just not care?