Pembrokeshire Road Trip: Day 4 & 5 – St Govans

[John Baker]

Waking even later on Day 4 even with yet another clear sky forecast we decided we had to do something else apart from Astro - so we had a day walking the coastal path and taking it easy and getting to bed early.

Day 5 - apologies it's not astro, but decided to have a day chasing the Puffins around Skomer  - a totally amazing site, but to keep the story here are a couple of shots...
I always smile as you see people on Skomar with massive lenses which they hump up the cliff from the boat landing - this is using my astro 8-15mm fisheye...

Skomer "Bad Boys"

The "money" shot...

OK, so on getting back the apartment we found that the evening would be clear we decided to go across to the small chapel at St Govans Head - this is another location within the range at Castlemartin. - thankfully at the weekend there is unrestricted access.

The Chapel is nestled in a fissure in the rocks so is actually quite difficult to include in the shots, but this was the first attempt, a panorama of 6 shots

Moving along the top of the fissure - a 3 shot vertical pano

On St Govans Head, a 4 stack vertical pano, a great view of Mars and the Core - the seascape was taken at 120" while the sky was at 30"

Moving away from the edge we then set up some trackers and tried some longer exposures - having left the long lenses in the car this is  a single 143" exposure  looking back across to M31

Moving away from the cliff edge did impact on the view, this is a combine shot, sky at 122" on the tracker, foreground 120" with the tracker off.

Feeling totally satisfied we packed up and headed for home...

I then decided that I wanted one final set of shots. I had wanted to try to get a decent shot of the Milky Way over a hay bale for many years and I never seemed to have the right conditions at the right time.
I had planned on doing a shoot on the way to Carew Castle, but by the time we got to the field the efficient farmer had picked them all up...

However, I did find these...

Sorry for doing this over 4 posts, hopefully you have enjoyed the images - this was the most amazing astro photography holiday I have ever done - getting a combination of 4 nights shoots was just awesome and totally exceeded expectation.

We could have done 5 nights but we simply ran out of energy...

 

[Davey-T]

Haven't been back there for many years, must get a trip organised.

I have a picture somewhere taken by my wife of me going head over heels on the mainland overlooking Skomer while trying to snap some Puffins, managed to hold the camera up as I rolled down the hill 

Thanks

Dave

[John Baker]

8 hours ago, Davey-T said:

... managed to hold the camera up as I rolled down the hill 

Been there and still have rhe scars

[Dragon_Astro]

 Down my neck of the woods, glad you had a good visit

We have been very lucky down here with the clear nights, alas it looks like the good run has come to an end. Not a clear night forecast until THursday/Friday of next week.

Time to catch up on some sleep lol

[John Baker]

2 hours ago, Dragon_Astro said:

Not a clear night forecast until THursday/Friday of next week.

Fingers crossed it clears for the Big meteor shower