FenlandPaul

Beautiful. It was a truly lovely sight; I was sitting out on a frozen fen, attempting a (failed) timelapse, but the view was very special indeed.

I think you know I’d like these, Paul! The lighting on the Beacon monument is superb, and I like the composition (it’s not easy nailing that at 50mm on Orion). Splendid.

Really lovely colours in that, Luke. The clouds definitely enhance it. 👍

💯 As I always say when I’m trying to gee myself back up after things like that, you’ve got to be in it to win it!

Gorgeous images - that airflow looks terrific ! Glad you had more success than my Thursday night, with a 6 hour round trip completely thwarted by clouds that no forecast seemed to predict! 🤦‍♂️

Fantastic, Luke - what a trip! Looks like you had some awesome displays and wonderful photos for memories. Iceland is 100% on my list! We’ve got another trip to northern Norway planned for March - this time to Lofoten. So hoping for plenty of Lights action then as well!

I love the tone you’ve created in that - very nice! Planning trips to shoot the night sky is a lot of fun!

That outburst at 21.51 is absolutely stunning! 👌 What a wonderfully active night and great videos. Looking forward to heading back to northern Norway in late March for some more northern light action!

Really enjoyed that;; as you say, not often you see h-alpha timelapse!!

I suspect my interests are a little more niche here, but for widefield / landscape astrophotography I enjoy and recommend these channels (some include promoted / sponsored content, which I generally don’t mind so long as it’s still informative and transparent): Alyn Wallace (hugely passionate and talented landscape astrophotographer) Nightscape Images (an extraordinary volume of tutorials and “follow-along” adventures here) Night Lights Films (by Adrien Mauduit, who is almost certainly the best aurora photographer / timelapser in the world) Having dabbled in making vlogs for YouTube in the past, I can vouch for how difficult it is to make these sorts of videos out in the field. Very much hats off to these guys.

I love the detail in the tail, Paul. What a lovely comet and image. 👍

That part of the East coast is surprisingly blighted by light. When I was up at Happisburgh the GY / Lowestoft light done was really hard to deal with. You were in the middle of that but you’ve really managed to bring out the detail. 👏👏

Thanks Paul. 😊 My bag took an hour to clean yesterday; I’ve not tackled my tripods yet (still in the boot - out of sight out of mind!!). Thankfully I managed to keep all lenses well away from the mud.

Thanks for that extra info. These areas are super interesting. You always get a sense of the constant threat posed by storm surges in this part of the world (I see the RSPB lost a number of hides in the big 2013 surge); similar to our awareness of the river flood risk here in the Fens.

Thanks, Lee - I really appreciate that mate. I’ll keep doing them as long as I keep enjoying making them - which I suspect will be for a very long time. It’d be a shame not to get to AL #100!! 🤣

Life's been rather busy lately so I've not been able to keep up to date with posting my images here - apologies, I'll try to catch up soon. However on Boxing Day I spent all night out on the Norfolk coast under a beautifully transparent and dark sky. It was windy and cold, but the fresh air and the amazing nocturnal sounds of the wildlife kept me enthused through the evening (along with a flask of tea and some of the Christmas choccies!). My first visit was to Snettisham, on Norfolk's west coast, overlooking the Wash towards Lincolnshire. Snettisham is famous for its mudflats, which provide a rich feeding ground for its many visiting birds and provides a home to a popular RSPB reserve. My foreground subject was a dilapidated jetty, which I'd not visited before but had studied on Google Earth and the excellent FotoVue guide to East Anglia. The jetty was build 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. A 15 minute walk along the beach to the jetty allowed me to become dark adapted and take in the atmosphere. The cacophony of around a hundred pink-footed geese flying a few feet above my head to a roosting site on the flats made the journey more exciting (I could hear the beat of their wings!). The high tide, a couple of hours earlier, had been particularly high, and it had washed the mudflats clean. Getting out onto the mud to get the composition I wanted was, to say the least, a little tricky. The surface was very slippery, but then my foot would break through and disappear up to six inches into the mud. Narrow but deep drainage channels made things even more interesting, adding an extra level of jeopardy! My first composition, "Former Glory" was of Orion round to Leo, looking south east. 📷 Canon 6D with Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens 🔧 Sky: 5x 20s exposures at ISO3200 (using Kase Starglow filter). Foreground: 1x 267s exposure at ISO1600 🎞 Sky stacked in Sequator. Blended and edited in Photoshop and Lightroom. The second composition (no name yet I'm afraid) was in the opposite direction, from the relative safety of the shoreline, with the faint band of the Milky Way around Cassiopeia. 📷 Canon 6D with Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens 🔧 Sky: 5x 20s exposures at ISO3200 (using Kase Starglow filter). Foreground: 1x 205s exposure at ISO1600 🎞 Sky stacked in Sequator. Blended and edited in Photoshop and Lightroom. Thanks for reading and, as ever, comments and hints welcome!! Paul. 😊

Super pic, Rustang. Love the way you've brought out Barnard's Loop and the California nebula and a great composition.

Those are super, Dave. The reflections are stunning!!

That really is a beautiful image. Amazing to capture from mainland U.K.!!

That’s super interesting. How does this compare to other big displays you’ve had there? Sounds like it was a cracker last night, with the arc visible by eye from Norfolk and decent beams on camera.

Very nice, Paul. I love it when the Plough arches around something!

Thank you, Mick - appreciated! Thanks Paul. I don’t blame you - wet and cold feet before bed? No thanks!!

Wowsers!! 🤩 They look like SOME skies! Great images.

That’s a fantastic capture - fascinating. There’s something about watching an occultation that really puts you in touch with the colossal scale of the universe!

Earlier on the same evening that I shot The Beauty of Her Dance, we scouted out a fast-running stream that has a few nice cascades and pools in it as it neared the fjord. It was only a short walk from the roadside and we hoped to carve out some pleasing compositions, even at the risk of slipping on the treacherous rocks and getting a soaking. It was a little more challenging than I'd expected because getting out over the water wasn't as easy as it looked during the day, and the shot upstream seemed to coincide with a complete absence of aurora in that direction. Esther, wisely sitting watching me from the top of the bank, well out of harm's way, started to notice the aurora was really picking up in the opposite direction. This, I thought, was no good to me because the road crossed the stream not far down the hill, and I assumed the bridge would ruin the foreground. But when I took some test shots, the bridge was barely noticeable, the aurora was streaming nicely in the same direction as a tree that overhung the stream, as well as lighting up the landscape. Really sorry if you're getting a bit bored with these images - only a few more to share!! 😊