Milky Way from Mt. Chelmos, Greece

[aradiel]

Just two weeks ago, late night of Saturday (16) and the first morning hours of Sunday (17 of May), more than twenty Greek astrophotographers (including myself), gathered for our Astrophotography Night Event at Chelmos Mountain (also known as Aroania), to photograph the night sky at an altitude of 2.000+ meters.

Our goal was to spend the night at the peak of the mountain, at 2.340m altitude, where the telescope "Aristarchos" is located.

Actually, is one of the darkest places in Greece and Europe, and obviously the reason why the telescope was built there, literally at the edge of nowhere !

But, despite the good and relatively hot (for the season) weather, we couldn't reach the telescope area due to snow.
Instead we base camped at the half of the trail at 2.100m, at an old and abandoned refuge.

Thanks to the clear skies, we were able to watch the Milky Way as it was rising around midnight, and I captured some nice pics I would like to share with you.

It was the perfect opportunity to test my new Vixen Polarie Star Tracker and some new lenses like the Nikon 85mm f/1.8 and the Sigma 35mm Art f/1.4 that I bought recently.
So, here is some images from our event, and I hope you like them !

[Roy Challen]

Great images, I particularly like the composition of the third picture.

Roy

[aradiel]

Great images, I particularly like the composition of the third picture.

Roy

Thank you very much Roy !

[robbie c]

Cracking images if I had to pick one it would be the third one for me as well 

[laudropb]

All great but the third one is special

[Scooot]

Lovely images, must have been a great experience to be there!

[aradiel]

Thank you all !

It was indeed an amazing experience!

[Hoshikomi]

Wonderful images.  What were the exposure times and number of sub-frames?

[SkyJamie]

Awesome pics

[slim80]

Amazing work.Great shots.Well done

[aradiel]

Thank you all !!!

Wonderful images.  What were the exposure times and number of sub-frames?

I forgot to mention that all pics are single exposures, so no subs, bias, flats, darks, etc.

I spend most of my time there shooting a series of photos for a timelapse I'm currently working, so my time was limited.

As for the exposure times (EXIF), it is the following respectively :

1st pic : f/1.8 ISO 500 15sec @ 20mm

2nd pic : f/1.8 ISO 2000 21sec @ 20mm

3rd pic : f/1.8 ISO 1600 17sec @ 20mm

4th pic : f/1.8 ISO 1000 24 sec @ 85mm

[Pete Presland]

What a beautiful set of images!

[James]

As per the others, the third one really does it for me

James

[Psychobilly]

Third is the standout image for me as well... I would have been chuffed with any of them

[StuartJPP]

Yep...some nice stuff going on there...3rd and 4th for me.

[PeterCPC]

Nice pics but the third is outstanding.

Peter

[inedible_hulk]

Awesome!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Physopto]

Very nice images. Looks to me that you had a really good time with a positive outcome.

I wish!

Derek

[davefrance]

Very nice, thanks for sharing

[aradiel]

Thank you all for your kind words ! There is a lot more to come in the near future !