Wonderful Highland skies

[Komet]

I have just returned from a week on the shores of Loch Kishorn in Wester Ross. I was lucky to have a couple of mainly clearish skies and although I only had a camera and a tripod I had to have a go at grabbing some images.

The camera is an unmodded Canon 1000D using the 18-55 kit lens at 18mm. Exposure was 23 seconds at 1600ISO

This is M45 rising - a single exposure

Whilst this is 12 exposures at 23 seconds - a piece of the Milky Way. I would grabbed more but alas I had no hair dryer and dew was a real problem.

Also got a short time lapse .... these are 20 second images and once again I was stymied by the dew.

Have a look in HD if you can.

I also had a first. I could actually see Andromeda with my naked eye. Didn't even need to use averted vision. Stunning.

I wish I could have lunked all my "serious" gear up there.

[Lorne]

Good pics, never mind, the dew wont be a problem up here soon... it will be ICE on the scopes!

[Komet]

As an afterthought .... not exactly astro related but it is up in the air ....

Coming home down the A1 in Northumberland on Saturday I saw this ....

Its a fallstreak cloud apparently. I cannot remember seeing one before.

[AstroTux]

Ah!! Kishorn.

By the looks of it you were in Achintraid. My home from home is Shieldaig, just up the glen......

Hope you didn't get much grief from 'The Kishorn Commandos' !!

[Komet]

Shieldaig .... where the barman from the Tigh an Eileen comes from Cotgrave - about half an hour from me here at home! Great Ullapool beer in there mind (of the same name also). I have no idea about the Kishorn Commandos ... are they locals who don't wear underpants?

[AstroTux]

I have no idea about the Kishorn Commandos ... are they locals who don't wear underpants?

The Kishorn Commandos is an 'affectionate' name for the lads who moved into Kishorn in the '80s to build the oil rig across the loch by Russell, and who have been immortalised in song by Gaberlunzie. A rather upbeat but poorly filmed video of this being performed by North Sea Gas in the temporary Shieldaig bar ( before the new one was built ) can be found at

.

As you can see this is a song loved by the locals, it was a wild night that night .

One of the Shieldaig locals ' Nick the Greek' actually came into the area as a 'commando' before settling down and working on the fish farm in Kishorn.

I also remember driving over the Bealach into Applecross back then and looking down on the enormous structure of the rig. Wow......