Streaks of light

This was my first good star trail picture. I had tried 3 previous times to take a good night picture capturing the stars, and all turned out washed out or the battery drained before I could get a good exposure. This was especially true with my original D200 camera, which would eat an entire batter within 30 minutes. The D300 seems much better in this respect.

I am still trying to fine tune my settings, but this photo and the previously posted star trail were both taken with wide apertures (f/4.5) but varying exposure times. This one was taken with a 4498 sec (1 hr 15 minutes) exposure and the first image was taken with a 3596 sec (1 hr). It also definitely matters how close a light source is to the images you are taking. Both of these pictures I had to crop part of the right edge as the fire that was 3-400 feet away bled into the images.