This august monument, several hundred yards from the mansion house, was erected for the Earl Bishop between 1779-83. It was built in memory of his lordship's elder brother George, 2nd Earl of Bristol, who died a bachelor in 1775. The mausoleum stands between the Lion's Gate and the Bishop's Gate. The monument was crowned with a domed monopteral tempietto, contained a fine statue of the Earl Bishop's brother, in Roman dress, by John van Nost the younger. Neither the tempietto nor the statue could withstand the storms of 1839, since when the fragments have lain around the base of the now stunted monument, awaiting restoration.
It took me some time to complete this photograph. It's my first Milky Way image shot at 35mm. The sky was shot separately and was tracked and stacked. My plan for the foreground was to illuminate it using light painting with a drone technique but the wind was so strong I just shot it as is. Illuminated by light pollution from Coleraine, as I was facing Limavady direction it worked quite well.
Some technical details:
Sky: Tracked - 5 Exposures 180s long at 35mm | f4 | ISO 800 | 25 Flats | 6 Darks | No Bias
Stacked in DSS and edited in PS
Foreground: 10 Exposures 30s long at 35mm | f2.8 | ISO 200 stacked in PS to reduced noise.