Cocktails under canopies of canvas and stars

[DirkSteele]

My recent holiday to the &Beyond Benguerra Island in Mozambique was special for many reasons, not least the amazing amount of stargazing I achieved (took my Tak FC-76) under Bortle Class 2 skies. You will have seen several reports if you read the observing reports section.

 

Something else that makes it special is the Dhow Bar on the beach. A traditional dhow vessel was blown ashore during a cyclone about 10 years ago and it was turned into a bar. This was where we would head every night for a pre-dinner drink. I had to try and capture the amazing scene for myself. My wife is sitting at the bar while one staff member mixes a cocktail,

 

Used an unmodified Canon 70D and 14mm f/2.8 L lens. This is a blend of two shots. 2 seconds for the foreground and then 25 seconds shortly after at ISO 3200 f/2.8 for the sky. Shot was harder than I hoped as first attempt was washed out by bright foreground so moved camera 30 metres down the beach, keeping camera on same orientation.

 

Each image was processed in Lightroom and then blended in Photoshop using a layers mask. The 2 sec exposure captured the brightest stars and Jupiter making aligning the night sky straight forward.

 

Hope you like it.

[Mick J]

That looks brilliant, great capture. 😀

[Scooot]

What a lovely scene! Fantastic image  

[ollypenrice]

That is an absolute cracker! If we still had Pic of the Week that would be mine.

Olly

[gorann]

I fully agree with Olly! Post it on Astrobin: you should at least get a TopPic or even an IOTD🍷😎

[DirkSteele]

4 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

That is an absolute cracker! If we still had Pic of the Week that would be mine.

Olly

Wow!  Coming from you that means a lot.  Thanks.