FenlandPaul

Beautiful, Callum.

Cheers Paul - yes, it’s awesome when someone rediscovers the simple joy of just looking. 👍 You’re very welcome, Andrew - thank you. Thanks Lee - really appreciated, as ever. Merry Christmas to you and yours too.

Thanks Dave - really appreciated.

Like many, I watched the weather forecast for the Geminid peak deteriorate as the big day approached, but I was reasonably hopeful the Suffolk coast would get a couple of hours of at least partially clear sky. So I headed over to the beautiful pebble beach at Dunwich, a few miles south of Southwold, and arranged to meet a couple of other stargazers there as well (not something I do very often - usually a solitary soul!). As I arrived at dusk, cloud was prevalent, but Jupiter began popping out through the murk with increasing frequency, bolstering my confidence. As larger breaks in the cloud appeared, it was clear this was a wonderfully dark site, and in fact later on it was possible to see the full Milky Way band from the Great Rift in the north west all the way through fainter Cassiopeia, Perseus and down to the Orion regions in the south east. The wind off the north sea was fairly brisk, but that all added to the atmosphere. By around 8.30pm, meteors began dropping with a decent cadence. At times I spotted 4 or 5 bright ones well within a minute. Some were rapid - gone almost as soon as I spotted them. But some were long, bright and seemed to laze their way across the sky, occasionally leaving bright trains that would fade over a few seconds. Over the night I must have seen 60 or 70. I set up a few timelapses to capture different compositions and did what I could to just sit back and enjoy the show (not something that comes naturally, especially when trying to make videos as well!). The guys I was with were deep sky imagers, so it was awesome to give them a change of scene and enjoy the whole dome of the sky as it is put on this spectacle - I highly recommend it to anyone! Great to have company for a change, too. Overall this was the best meteor shower I've enjoyed for a couple of decades, and it has certainly prompted me to spend more time just looking and less time faffing with cameras (something I'll be trying to remind myself of when we head back to Arctic Norway for the northern lights in a couple of months' time). Some of the better images are below (including a meteor-less one of Orion) and I've also embedded a timelapse showing one of the meteor trains dissipating over about 12 minutes of real-time. I also made a video journal of the night, which you can find linked at the bottom. Hope you enjoy. Thanks for all of your support in my nightscape imaging and video-making this year - I've thoroughly enjoyed it and always welcome feedback and hints. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. 😊 ✨Impact✨ 📷 Canon 6D (astro-modified) with Samyang 24mm f/1.4 lens 🔧 8s exposure at ISO 6400 (additional 40 adjacent images from timelapse stacked for sky) 🎞️ Sky stacked in Sequator. Edited and assembled in Lightroom, Starnet++ and PhotoShop ✨High and Dry✨ 📷Canon 6D (astro-modified) with Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens 🔧 29x13s exposures at ISO 6400 f/2.8 🎞️ Stacked in Sequator. Edited in Photoshop. ✨ DIspersing meteor train (looped)✨ Close up of meteor train.mp4

Nice 👌 I love how sharp that Sigma is. Makes me think bad thoughts…..

Those skies look cracking!! 🤩

I was having problems with the link, Callum, but if I’m correct I think this is where you’re pointing people towards: Looks like a cracking display that night! We were shrouded in freezing fog unfortunately, but I watched footage from elsewhere rather enviously!

Awesome, Lee. Very nicely captured. Quite an event!!

So chuffed for you, Paul. Both awesome images and the aurora is a memorable one, for sure. Unfortunately freezing fog meant I had to live this one vicariously through those who were clear.

Well done! Always a thrill to capture it. 😊

Very nice indeed, Dave (though I’m not sure I believe you that anything in the north west hasn’t been rained on!!). I particularly love the cranes, boats and traffic adding some really nice dynamics too the foreground. Day to nights are not easy! If you’re getting into timelapses, two YT accounts potentially worth following are @MatthewVandeputte and @EmericTimelapse - two very good timelapsers who have some good tutorials and sequences (interspersed with the usual gear reviews etc).

Thanks Lee - really appreciate the encouragement. I always feel there are so many better people out there for processing; a video from me would be full of mild swearing as I mess up the mask AGAIN, some haphazard experimentation and the occasional exclamation of “oh **** I didn’t hit save!!”. 🤣

Thank you - really appreciate that (I can assure you my deep sky stuff is frustrating and terrible!! 🤣) Thank you. 😊

After a two month hiatus due to bad weather and other commitments - which included missing that amazing 2-night aurora display over the UK - I managed to get out for a night at Rutland Water, in the East Midlands. I'd wanted to visit a pretty church that sits right on the shore of the lake, which was saved from destruction when Rutland was flooded in the 1970s. It was awesome to be out under the stars after so long! On the way I stumbled across a striking abandoned windmill standing defiantly in a field outside the village of South Luffenham, so I stopped on the way back to capture an image there too. If you're interested, I produced a video journal of the night - you can find the link at the bottom. Feedback always welcome! Thanks! 😊 ✨The Church on the Water✨ 📷 Canon 6D (astro-modded) with Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens 🔧 Sky: 13x 120s tracked exposures at ISO400 at f/2.8. Foreground: Blend of 30s and 120s exposures at ISO800 at f2.8 🎞️ Sky stacked in Sequator. Edited and assembled in Photoshop ✨Landmark✨ 📷 Canon 6D (astro-modified) and Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens 🔧 Sky: 13x120s tracked exposures at ISO800 f/2.8. Foreground: 1x60s exposure at ISO1600 🎞️ Sky stacked in Sequator. Edited and assembled in PhotoShop. ✨Normanton Plough✨ 📷 Canon 6D and Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens 🔧 Sky: 20s exposure at ISO1600 f/2.8 with Kase Starglow filter. Foreground: 0s exposure at ISO1600 🎞️ Sky stacked in Sequator. Edited and assembled in PhotoShop.

Such a special timelapse, Paul - awesome. 👏👏

Cracking shot!!

Wow wow wow. What a night. Seeing the corona is one of life’s most awe-inspiring sights. Beautifully captured. 👌

Epic. 🤩

💯 Pete - you’ve got the green arc and some lovely red pillars in the left. Awesome.

Beautiful, Callum. What a location to see it from!

Some great outbursts there, Earl! I have to say that a hot tub + aurora is a killer combination!

Very nice, Paul. Well done for grabbing the clear skies while you could!!

Good points @AstroNebulee. Very cool that you’ve been selling locally - great validation of your work! As @clarkpm4242says, all we need is some decent clear nights now! It’s been over a month since I’ve managed a night out and I’m going slightly up the wall!!

Super interesting post, Dave. I’ve used light painting and low level lighting in my images, and both can work in different contexts. Ive usually fixed the colour balance in post and not had issues, but getting the brightness right can be really hard as different screens and platforms render the image so differently - I’ve published some stuff that looked exactly as I intended on one laptop, only to view it later on another device and thought “crikey that’s gaudy”! Personally at the moment for “big” foregrounds I prefer long exposures with no artificial lighting. But this changes over time. In the images above, I think I prefer your ambient Orion image, but both are nice. Really enjoy experimenting and hearing different opinions on this!

Belter of a catch, though! I’d say the other 399 were worth the investment to get that one! 😊