FenlandPaul

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!

Just such wonderful dustiness on display there, Lee. Very excited to see you enjoying the new lens. I love how the Summer Triangle pops - not always easy to achieve. 👍

I like very much! What a great composition and so good to get the core nice and in-light-polluted right down to the horizon. Placing yourself in the image definitely brings it together. Great job. 👏👏

That’s super exciting, Lee. Just getting the stars on a landscape image is such a thrill - and I really hope that that 14mm of yours is a 👌. You never know, sometimes those other folk out there at silly o’clock are also shooting Astro. I encountered someone at the radio telescope dishes outside Cambridge once; he was also there to shoot the Milky Way and once we both realised we weren’t wrong’uns, we had a great chat and compared techniques and kit (he was a lot better than me!!).

Thanks so much. If you mean the streaks going past, I think the brighter ones were planes. A few faintest satellites in there too. This area gets some fairly feisty storm surges at times, so I think I’d get the hebegebees too during spring tides and storms!

Thanks Ian - I agree - the star trails image came together very nicely and against my expectation became my favourite image from the night. Mudflats definitely create some challenges - first steps are often tentative!! Glad you enjoyed the video journal - I thoroughly enjoy making these, despite the added complexity they create out in the field!

Thanks Lee - that's very kind. You should see the number of times I mess up with two cameras (dead battery in intervalometer, didn't insert an SD card etc etc etc)! It's always simplest to find some great local places to shoot from - that way there's little at stake if the weather turns or the shot doesn't quite work out. I've had a few longer distance trips during which the clouds have confounded the forecasts and I've ended up with nothing, which is never encouraging. Plus going local really encourages you to think differently about where you live. I understand about the out-alone thing. I used to get jittery quite easily (although the biggest scare I had turned out to be two inquisitive cows!!) but over time I've realised that anyone who happens to be out there is probably more nervous of me than vice versa!! Really looking forward to seeing your images and how you develop. 😊

Excellent. With your compositional eye and liberal supply of foregrounds, I’m looking forward to that!

Thanks, Paul. Well, normal’s relative, isn’t it?! ”Proper” nightscapers frown on star trails, but it’s one of my favourite images to date. So I guess that makes me not a proper nightscaper….

Thank you, Magnus, that’s very kind. Just trying to learn more and more, with a boat load of mistakes (and wasted trips) along the way!

Thanks Jim, that’s very kind. I hadn’t expected the star trail image to be my favourite from the evening, but it turned out that way.

I can't believe I'm sharing my 50th astrolandscape - it's been such good fun shooting these and sharing with you all. I've thoroughly enjoyed your comments and suggestions and look forward to the next 50 (although I'll need better weather than we've had so far this year for that to be possible in the near future!). Last new moon, I headed up to the Norfolk coast to a place I last visited on Boxing Day night - Snettisham Beach, famous for its vast tidal mudflats that attract migrating birds in staggering numbers. It was - amazingly for a new moon - forecast to be clear all night on every forecast model I could find, so it seemed like an opportune time to plan an all-nighter. I felt a bit cheeky doing this as it was a school night, but coffee was made for a reason and it's clear that reason was astronomers. My foreground subject for the evening was the large dilapidated jetty, which was built in the Second World War to allow gravel extracted from the nearby pits to be moved by boat, destined to help build the concrete runways needed to support the American bombers being stationed in the UK. I was accompanied all night by the incredible sound of the birds out on the flats - they never ceased and it was a fantastic soundtrack to the crystal clear night. I had a few shots planned for the night. First of all I set up two timelapses from opposite sides of the jetty - one to capture the Milky Way rising and one to capture a star trails shot. I left these running for a few hours while I went for a nap in a bird hide that overlooks the beach. When I woke, I set about my main shots for the night - a Milky Way arch panorama over the jetty, and a tracked, stacked Milky Way shot also above the jetty, which I ended up completing just as astronomical twilight was starting (so probably didn't stack as many as I'd have liked). If you're interested, I also filmed a vlog / journal of the night, which I've linked at the bottom of this post. Hope you enjoy and would love any comments / suggestions etc. 😊 Star Trails I named this image "Serpentine"; I love the curved channel in the mudflat and the wonderful mudcracks. It was shot on a Canon 6D with a Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens with 319x 30s exposures at ISO400. The foreground was a single shot at 120s at ISO800 (with long exposure noise reduction). The star trails were assembled in StarStax and the foreground and trails were blended in Photoshop. Milky Way timelapse Shot with a Canon 6D and Samyang 24mm f/1.4 lens at f/2. 1,164 x 10s exposures at ISO6400. Timelapse assembled in LRTimelapse with additional editing in Lightroom and Premiere pro. This version is a low resolution rendering optimised for Twitter - the full HD version is in the vlog at the bottom. 20230419 Snettisham Old Jetty MW timelapse (Twitter version).mp4 Milky Way arch panorama Shot on an astro-modified Canon 6D with Samyang 14mm f/2.8. 2 rows and 6 columns (shot in landscape orientation), with each panel comprising 4 stacked shots of 20s each at ISO6400. Panes stacked in Sequator, panorama stitched in Microsoft ICE and final image edited in PhotoShop. Milky Way tracked Shot with an astro-modified Canon 6D and Samyang 24mm f/1.4 lens, and a Skywatcher Star Adventurer for the tracked shots. Foreground 120s at ISO1600 at f/4. Sky 6x 120s exposures at ISO800 and f/2.8. Stacked using Sequator and assembled and edited in PhotoShop. Video journal / vlog Here's a link to the journal I made of the night. If you enjoy this sort of thing, please do consider subscribing to my YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/@nightscapejournals).

Beautiful images. You’ve really managed to push that exposure time with the Polaris - I hadn’t come across that but of kit before but it looks very interesting. I’ve noticed a feature of Norway is that ostensibly unspoilt, wild areas can often have very harsh lights at night! A product of long winter nights and cheap electricity I guess!

Love the composition, Paul. That hill is made for panos! Looks like a glorious night.

Lee I am so SO chuffed you captured this. 🤩 Can I just remind you of an exchange we had a few days ago?! 🤣 Looks like your wish was granted.

Oooh, new toy! That looks wonderfully clean, Paul. And there’s no harm in lots of barns - definitely a positive feature of your part of the world!

That sounds like an idyllic way to spend the early morning. Nice images too. 👍

Beautiful. You had a fantastic display! I love the colours on the first timelapse.