How to do a night sky time-lapse – Nikon D7000

Here’s a video I made of night sky time-lapse using my Nikon D7000 and Final Cut Pro X.

Here’s how I created this shot:
1. Put the camera in manual mode
2. Set the focus to manual on the lens (Nikkor 18-105mm)
3. Set white balance to Auto
4. Turned off image preview to avoid any background light 
5. Set up the camera on a tripod and framed the shot
6. Manually set the focus so that the stars looked nice and sharp
7. Set my aperture to f/3.5, shutter speed to 30 seconds and ISO to 1250
8. Set interval timer shooting in the menu to 1 minute interval, 120 shots (2 hours duration)
9. Imported the 120 shots into Final Cut Pro X and turned them into one compound clip
10. Increased the speed of the clip so the total duration was 10 seconds

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