FenlandPaul

Very nice indeed, Paul. I never tire of the Plough in an image. 😊

First of many I hope! 🎉🎉

What a stunning set of images, Patrick. And a great story to go with it.

Very nice, Paul. Must have been an awesome experience out there on the beach.

I think you can be super happy with that as a first attempt, Jeff! Is that from Kenya? Must be great to have the core parallel with the horizon like that, rather than stuck in the light polluted murk of this part of the world!!

Very nice indeed, Chris. Amazing what you can pull out of the MW despite lack of proper darkness!

A beautiful image from one of my favourite locations! 👏🤩 Hope you had a great time down there; we’re Cornwall-free this year, which is a bit disappointing!

Just all round a beautiful image, Paul. Nicely done!! 👏

Enjoy, Chris. Hope you get some clearer (and darker) skies than I’ve had in the Highlands this week! ☁️ 🌧️

That pano is absolutely stunning, Paul (as are the timelapses, but I could get LOST in the pano). You’ve had some great shows in the last couple of days. 👍

As I said on Twitter, lovely image, Chris. The foreground is a real winner. 👍

Stunning, Paul - the layers of colour are just exquisite.

Thank you - the aurora was definitely a bonus for the evening (in fact it sort of redeemed it after the dew and kit issues!).

Very nice Lee. Glad you were careful next to that quarry 😳! A very natural edit as well 👍.

Thanks Pete - very kind. The hot shoe is holding a wireless intervalometer - it doesn’t interact with the hot shoe, just uses it as a mounting bracket and a short cable goes from there to the port. I use it a lot for timelapses and sequences of lots of shots for stacking. thanks Paul. Misty aurora still my favourite. 😊

Yep, that’s a lovely image Lee. “Fake” NLCs seem to abound at this time of year, but I just think it makes genuine sightings all the more pleasing. Nice colours in the foreground flora! 👌

That’s very kind indeed, Lee. If I’ve in anyway inspired you to get out there, then that’s the very best thing to hear. I love the misty aurora one too. I printed one up the other day, and I’m quite chuffed with it. 😊

Thanks Andrew - appreciated,

At last new moon, I headed up to the middle of west Norfolk to an abandoned medieval village known as Godwick. Very little structurally remains of the village, but as the surrounding land has been pasture since its demise, the size and plan of the settlement can still be discerned through earth mounts, ditches and embankments. The centrepiece of the village is the remains of its church, Godwick All Saints, which stands, somewhat out of place, in the middle of a field. I'd seen some daytime images taken by another photographer I know, and having studied local OS maps and light pollution potential, I thought it stood a decent chance of being a good nightscape location. The village is accessed by a 15 minute walk across fields. I arrived at dusk about 15 minutes before a scheduled ISS pass, so pressed on as quickly as I could through 7-foot high oil seed rape, on a a very ill-defined path, getting to the church tower just in time, covered in pollen and those little yellow petals which, being soaked in a light early dew, readily stuck to me. I managed to get set up just as the ISS became visible in the west and made its seemingly leisurely transit towards the east, peaking at about 75 degrees in altitude. [📷 Canon 6D with Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens | 🔧 Sky - 7x30s exposures at ISO400. Foreground - 1x90s exposure at ISO400 | 🎞️ Edited in Lightroom (also using the new AI denoise), assembled in PS.] As the twilight deepened, I was on the look-out for noctilucent clouds, although being early in the season I knew it was reasonably unlikely. I managed to convince myself at one point that I could see a brightening that was inconsistent with the twilight gradient, but having examined the images this was, unfortunately, a false alarm. That said, it was a beautiful view and I was pleased with this pano, nonetheless. As it got dark enough, my first target was Cassiopeia, with a simple composition over the tower. I took two versions of this image; one with the Kase Starglow filter and one without. Those that follow my work will know I have a penchant for dreamy starscapes, so I'm quite partial to the Starglow effect, but I know it's not to everyone's tastes. [📷 Canon 6D with Canon 50mm f/1.8 at f/1.8 | 🔧 Sky (non-starglow) - 10x8s exposures at ISO1600. Sky (starglow) - 5x8s exposures at ISO1600. Foreground - 1x30s exposure at ISO1600. 🎞️ Stacked in Sequator. Assembled and edited in PS.] The next constellation shot was Leo, which by this time was curving its reverse question mark around the top of the church tower. As with Cassiopeia, I opted for starglow and natural shots for this composition. [📷 Canon 6D with Samyang 24mm f/1.4 lens at f/2 | 🔧 Sky (non-starglow) - 20x13s exposures at ISO1600. Sky (starglow) - 5x13s exposures at ISO1600. Foreground - 1x30s exposure at ISO1600. 🎞️ Stacked in Sequator. Assembled and edited in PS.] It was now just about time for what I'd expected was going to be the main event of the evening (it wasn't.... keep reading....). The Milky Way core was just starting to rise around midnight and I reckoned I had a good hour of shooting in decent enough (though not complete) darkness. The trouble by now was that the dew was falling very hard and mist would descend periodically. My woes were compounded by leaky batteries in my star tracker that meant my plan for doing some tracked milky way shots had to change to some static images instead. After faffing around with compositions that just didn't seem right, I eventually got something I was at least half-pleased with, although when I came to edit it I was fighting against a sky that wasn't entirely dark. Nevertheless, and despite my grumpiness at the time, it's always great fun being out under the Milky Way from a light-pollution-free location, and to see the Great Rift arching down to the south east was real joy. [📷 Canon 6D (astro-modded) with Samyang 14mm f/2.8 | 🔧 Sky - 22x25s exposures at ISO3200. Foreground - 1x85s exposure at ISO1600. 🎞️ Stacked in Sequator. Assembled and edited in PS.] As I was taking the long exposure foreground shot for the image above, I saw a message from a friend of mine who was out on the coast a few miles north and reckoned he had some faint green auroral glow on his camera. So as soon as I finished the exposure I pointed the camera toward the north. To my absolute delight, the frame was filled with deep pinks. In an instant, my frustrations with the lack of a decent milky way dissipated and I ran around trying to grab a few still images as well as setting up timelapses. The very heavy dew was making images challenging, but thankfully the aurora was so bright only short exposures were required. Whilst I couldn't pick it up with the naked eye, a few people reported the brighter pillars being visible clearly. I've already posted the main auroral structure image I captured that evening, so below I'm sharing an image that captures the essence of the evening better than any other - the mist suddenly descended a created a wonderfully atmospheric feel around the church, diffusing the aurora (and enhancing its colour) beautifully; I felt very lucky indeed to be alone, capturing such a wonderful moment in this ancient place. As with some other recent nights out, I filmed a video journal, in which you can see the timelapses I made of the auroral pillars dancing behind the tower. That's linked below, and in the meantime thank you for reading this far and I look forward to any thoughts, comments, constructive criticism etc. And if you enjoy the video journal, please consider subscribing to the channel for more of the same - just nice relaxing nights under the stars. 😊

Just a lovely image that demonstrates why it’s always nice to be outside under an evening sky, even if those pesky NLCs don’t show up!

Really well done - that’s a super impressive first pano, with loads of breathing space either side. I also struggle with banding in the Samyang 14mm, which I think is a result of its very strong vignette. In theory I think a flat frame would deal with it, but who can be bothered to do that in the field?! So I’ve found that either making the overlap mega (75%-80%) or shooting in landscape orientation and doing more rows (again with plenty of overlap) really helps. I think setting a lens profile in Lightroom for the Samyang 14 would also help but (a) you need LR and (b) you need to know how to set it (which I don’t!). 😊

A truly spectacular image - beautiful colours, composition and execution. 👏

Thanks Lee. I think I missed the best of it, but thankfully caught it for an hour before it died back. Hoping to get the vlog edited this week and out next weekend, all being well. 😊

I spent a wonderful night in deepest Norfolk at the ruined church tower of a long-abandoned village. Despite no astro-darkness, the skies were beautiful and clear the whole night although the dew was torrential (if you see what I mean!). My principal aim was to shoot some constellation and milky way compositions over the church tower, but just as I was about to pack up, the northern skies started to dance (on camera - although a friend a few miles away on the coast caught a particularly bright pillar by eye). Shot with a Canon 6D, Samyang 24mm f/1.4 lens (stopped to f/2), ISO 6400 and a single 4s exposure. Edited in Photoshop. What a lovely surprise that kept me there for another hour (will eventually share some timelapse footage on my vlog once all edited). Enjoy! Paul.

Great capture on the ISS. I set up to grab it in both video and long exposure but it clouded over shortly before so I ended up with very disappointing shots!