Time lapse at Swinsty Reservoir

[GordonH]

I spent last night at Swinsty Reservoir, about 10 miles from where I live shooting some time lapse and animated star trails. Although the weather forecast was for clear skies for the whole night the sky was very milky towards the horizon and despite no moon the sky didn't appear that dark (probably due to nearby lights). I shot 4 time lapse clips from which I also made some animated star trails. Just after 12 midnight two cars pulled up on the road that bisects the reservoir about half a mile from where I was and some people got out and proceeded to let off some very loud fireworks for a period of about half an hour (these appear in one of the clips). My friend Bob Moore in America reported recently that he was trapped in his observatory by a bear that was wandering around, luckily we don't have that problem over here, but those geese and ducks on the reservoir, what a noise! Honking and quacking most of the night🤣. I started about 8pm and finished just before 6am this morning. I have included a link to the full resolution video which is in HD and 4K (please be patient as it takes a while for the full resolution 4K to appear after posting to YouTube) as Facebook compresses the video and spoils the quality

All the clips were shot on my Sony A7Sii with Samyang 12mm f2.8 fisheye lens with exposures of 20 seconds at f2.8 and ISO 2500 and my Sony A7iii with Samyang 24mm f1.4 lens with exposures of 20 seconds at f2.8 and ISO 1600

 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Very nice video.

We had a really clear moonless night Monday which I made the best of despite a real bad cold and annoying cough (just some backyard stuff) and thought last night would be the same, which it was to a certain extent and I did think of another session but noticed some clouds about at 10 ish and that milky horizion so with having a cold and all decided to stay indoors but glad you had a good night, despite the noise (fireworks and Geese 🙂 )

Steve 

[Craney]

I'm liking the shot under the trees.    Nicely crafted.    Could almost be the Northern forests of Canada, without the bears....🐻

 

[AbsolutelyN]

Really nice. Do you people wandering around (or hanging around) there in the night or are the lights from yourself?  

[GordonH]

19 hours ago, AbsolutelyN said:

Really nice. Do you people wandering around (or hanging around) there in the night or are the lights from yourself?  

You get occasional walkers with their dogs but they are usually gone by 10pm, the lights are from occasional cars that go to and from a house near by, any other faint flashes of light are from cars going across a road that bisects the reservoir about half a mile away

[AbsolutelyN]

Thanks, I'd be slightly worried of unsavoury activity in the carpark. I setup in Grimwith carpark years ago. They sky was stunningly dark up there but in the middle of the night some yorkshire water guy turned up in a landrover and threatened me with the police unless I left immediately. 

[GordonH]

8 hours ago, AbsolutelyN said:

Thanks, I'd be slightly worried of unsavoury activity in the carpark. I setup in Grimwith carpark years ago. They sky was stunningly dark up there but in the middle of the night some yorkshire water guy turned up in a landrover and threatened me with the police unless I left immediately. 

He had no right to, the car park and areas around the reservoir are open to the public 24 hours a day, I would have challenged him and asked him what law you were breaking

[AbsolutelyN]

That's really handy to know thank you. It was back in Jan 2005 so long time ago. I ran down my car battery powering the mount so ended up having to jump start the car :-) Nice to see local images on here, keep the time lapses coming, they are amazing.

 

Edited November 2, 2019 by AbsolutelyN

[Astroblagger]

cool video! What software do you use to make the video? im assuming you use Lightroom to batch process all the single images, any timelapse vid Iv put on Facebook seems to darken it ALOT!

[GordonH]

12 hours ago, Astroblagger said:

cool video! What software do you use to make the video? im assuming you use Lightroom to batch process all the single images, any timelapse vid Iv put on Facebook seems to darken it ALOT!

I use Lightroom to batch process all the images (which are in RAW format to begin with), these are then exported to jpeg, I then use Starstax to create the files for an animated star trail video and also star trail images, I use Premier Pro for the video rendering and adding music, etc