FenlandPaul

Superb, Mike - that is definitely on my list of places I'd love to travel to and be nocturnal with a camera! Love the composition. Paul

Oh dear! It's definitely not a fail-safe method - I probably should have flagged that! 😂 Managed to get out earlier this week and hopefully will have a write-up and video out in the next few days - just juggling with work travel and the like, but will hopefully have it done before the weekend. 😊

Nicely done, Lee!! Love the way the Plough stands out so we’ll. Quiye envious of your lone tree - all mine seem to have friends!

Really looking forward to seeing more!

Fantastic images to see and you should be proud of those. The top one is a favourite, with a lovely simple composition and nice blend. The detail in the MW is lovely. I like the intriguing quality of the foreground glow in the second image - I just want to know what’s round the corner! But for my taste the blend is a little abrupt (unless the sky is really that dark, in which case I’m going there tomorrow!!) - something I’m often guilty of - and my head can’t quite compute the star trails in the reflection with the non-trailing sky; I wonder if you cloned out the trails and maybe even simulated a reflection with layers, it might be an interesting look. But both are superb. 👍

I’m here to tell the tale!!

Thanks Paul. Indeed. Tonight potentially looking promising but the fields will be pretty soggy after last night's deluge. Thank you very much - appreciated. Always envious of your location right on the coast - lots of lovely foreground opportunities over that way!

That bomb story is glorious! Brilliantly eccentric. 😊

Thanks Lee - appreciated. It was nice to have those few extra degrees of Milky Way to play with!!

Fantastic, Lee. 👏👏 Love the story behind the hut, which you’ve light painted nicely. I suspect that is indeed aurora, which was reasonably active on Wednesday evening after a bonkers Tuesday. So great to see you out doing these shots. 👍

Thank you - that’s very kind. It would mean the world to me if someone gave it a go off the back of my images and videos! 😊

During our recent family holiday to Spain's Costa Blanca, I spent a night between a variety of locations that I'd scouted out during the day. I learned from my outing a few nights before (see AstroLandscapes #53) that I didn't want to do lots of hiking or climbing again, as the heat was draining and I knew I'd just get exhausted after a couple of locations. So I planned these all to be within 5 minutes' walk of somewhere sensible that I could park the car. The first set of locations were around a stunning rocky cove called Granadella, which is at the end of a long windy road that hugs the hillside - it always reminds of the opening sequence from the original The Italian Job film, except without the bulldozer waiting to plough me off the edge of the cliff! I wanted to get a shot from this road on the way down, but the valley was a lot more bland at night than I'd hoped and so instead I used the road itself as a leading line towards the Milky Way core, which nice and contrasty out of the sea in the distance. ✨"The Way"✨ 📷 Canon 6D (astro-modded) with Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens and SkyWatcher StarAdventurer tracker 🔧 Foreground: 120s exposure at ISO 800 and f/2.8. Sky: 12x tracked 120s exposures at ISO800 (+ dark frames) 🎞️ Sky stacked in Sequator, blended and edited in PhotoShop Down at the cove itself, there were a few small yachts moored that created some contrasting reflections in the water. I'd hoped to have the beach entirely to myself, but now and again an amorous couple would appear and wander past. I found this a little offputting as I tried to speak to camera while filming my vlog!! But it was a lovely place to sit for an hour or so, hearing the waves lapping against the pebbles. ✨From Granadella Beach ✨ 📷 Canon 6D (astro-modded) with Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens 🔧 Foreground: 60s exposure at ISO 800 and f/2.8. Sky: 19x 25s exposures at ISO4000 🎞️ Sky stacked in Sequator, blended and edited in PhotoShop Another road laden with hairpins climbs above the cove and offers some spectacular view down over the beach. I stopped at one of the hairpins and perched my tripod with legs either side of the safety barrier to get as birdseye shot as possible. The shot was slightly hampered by some bright lights from a villa over on the rights hand side; I'd definitely rather they weren't there but a couple of people have said they like the context it provides. I have taken some artistic liberty with this shot, as the Milky Way is shown in the position it was in about an hour before I took the shot (so my foreground images show the MW over to the right hand of the frame) - unfortunately I couldn't be in two places at once (nor negotiate another night out on our holiday!). ✨Cove View ✨ 📷 Canon 6D (astro-modded) with Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens and Skywatcher StarAdventurer tracker 🔧 Foreground: 120s exposure at ISO 800 and f/2.8. Sky: 9x 120s tracked exposures (+ darks) at ISO800 🎞️ Sky stacked in Sequator, blended and edited in PhotoShop My next shot was my second attempt at this location, a road above a beach called Ambolo. The beach is currently closed to the public as there is a danger of rockfall, although I could just make out a torchlight on the beach from time to time, so someone was trying to enjoy it! Whilst the road down felt a little sketchy, I took comfort from the fact that there was a villa a stone's throw from where I took the shot, so people were regularly using the road without being squashed by boulders! There's a fantastic rock island just off the shore here, which was lit periodically by the rotating beam of a nearby lighthouse. That light made the shot rather tricky to process, but overall I'm pleased with the shot. ✨Ambolo Milky Way ✨ 📷 Canon 6D (astro-modded) with Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens and Skywatcher StarAdventurer tracker 🔧 Foreground: 120s exposure at ISO 800 and f/2.8. Sky: 12x 120s exposures at ISO800 (tracked) 🎞️ Sky stacked in Sequator, blended and edited in PhotoShop My final location was probably the one I'd been looking forward to most, a dramatic headland that plunges down to the Meditteranean beneath, called Cap Negré, the Black Cape. By this time, the Pleiades were rising nice and high in the East and the gorgeous but subtle Cassiopeia Milky Way region was visible beautifully above the sea. The headland was topped by some beautiful fir trees, which whispered as the breeze caught them - a sound I love. My first shot was a simple one through the trees showing Jupiter and the Pleiades. ✨Through the Trees✨ 📷 Canon 6D (astro-modded) with Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens 🔧18x 20s exposures at ISO6400 🎞️Stacked in Sequator and edited in PhotoShop And then my final - and favourite - shot of the evening was a selfie, with me perched out on an outcrop on the headland. This sort of shot is the reason it's so much safer to scout areas during the day and look for hazards etc. I suspect if I'd arrived at night with no daytime scouting I would have shied away from attempting this, but I was able to test the rock during daylight and found it to be very secure (the drop looks precipitous, and would definitely have been unwelcome but there was no chance of actually plunging down to the sea!!). I love the detail I was able to pull out of this wonderful area of sky, and I prepared an annotated version too showing the wealth of deepsky objects just about captured. ✨Beneath Perseus ✨ 📷 Canon 6D (astro-modded) with Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens and SkyWatcher StarAdventurer tracker 🔧 Foreground: 20s exposure at ISO 6400 and f/2.8. Sky: 10x 120s exposures at ISO800 🎞️ Sky stacked in Sequator, blended and edited in PhotoShop So that wraps up a super enjoyable evening. I hope you've enjoyed them. I also made a video journal of the evening's adventures, which I've linked below. As always, I welcome any comments, feedback, suggestions, observations etc! Thanks for getting this far.

Well, as hopefully you know by now, I absolutely love these shots, Paul. So well deserved.

Wow, it really did go boom, didn’t it?! Great video.

Stunning location and picture. I suspect you’re going to have a lot of enjoyment from that van!

That looks absolutely idyllic! Great images to remember the night with. 👍

I just spat out my orange juice reading that!! 🤣🤣

That’s a really beautiful image, Lee - great colours in the stars and you’ve controlled the strong lighting on the church really well. I am sure the church warden and congregation would love it. Creeping around churchyards at night is kind of fun, although I often wonder what people who see me are thinking!! So great to see. 👏

I would have been over the moon if my first Milky Way image had been that detailed!! Congratulations - the first of many I hope. The modded 6D and that Samyang 14mm is a great combination.

That’s lovely, Paul. Beautifully processed. How did you find the MSM? Every so often I think about it as an alternative to the SA, which is a clunky old beast to lug around in the pack. Clearly a great lens, that Sigma, too.

Thanks Ian. The square crop is an excellent idea - a lot of the stuff inter edges of that shot are a bit “dead”. Appreciate the feedback - I think you’ve got a very valid point and you’re not the only one to have made it. I may work on some second edits that calm the foregrounds down a bit. Always welcome the feedback - still very much on the learning curve in this!! 😊

Thanks for the kind words, Dave. Hopefully another one next weekend (editing time permitting!).

That’s a keeper! really great image. The lens is going to get you far!!

Great image - it looks like you have a very usable setup there, I’d say. The Samyang is great because if it’s speed, but as you say, with the tracker and patience you can make so with what you have.

Awesome, Daniel, and a great tale as well. Always nice sharing with others!