AstroLandscapes #48 - Snettisham Old Jetty

[FenlandPaul]

Life's been rather busy lately so I've not been able to keep up to date with posting my images here - apologies, I'll try to catch up soon.

However on Boxing Day I spent all night out on the Norfolk coast under a beautifully transparent and dark sky.  It was windy and cold, but the fresh air and the amazing nocturnal sounds of the wildlife kept me enthused through the evening (along with a flask of tea and some of the Christmas choccies!). My first visit was to Snettisham, on Norfolk's west coast, overlooking the Wash towards Lincolnshire.  Snettisham is famous for its mudflats, which provide a rich feeding ground for its many visiting birds and provides a home to a popular RSPB reserve.  My foreground subject was a dilapidated jetty, which I'd not visited before but had studied on Google Earth and the excellent FotoVue guide to East Anglia.  The jetty was build in the Second World War to allow gravel extracted from the nearby pits to be moved by boat, destined to help build the concrete runways needed to support the American bombers being stationed in the UK.  

A 15 minute walk along the beach to the jetty allowed me to become dark adapted and take in the atmosphere.  The cacophony of around a hundred pink-footed geese flying a few feet above my head to a roosting site on the flats made the journey more exciting (I could hear the beat of their wings!).  The high tide, a couple of hours earlier, had been particularly high, and it had washed the mudflats clean. Getting out onto the mud to get the composition I wanted was, to say the least, a little tricky. The surface was very slippery, but then my foot would break through and disappear up to six inches into the mud. Narrow but deep drainage channels made things even more interesting, adding an extra level of jeopardy! 

My first composition, "Former Glory" was of Orion round to Leo, looking south east.  

📷 Canon 6D with Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens
🔧 Sky: 5x 20s exposures at ISO3200 (using Kase Starglow filter). Foreground: 1x 267s exposure at ISO1600
🎞 Sky stacked in Sequator. Blended and edited in Photoshop and Lightroom.

 

The second composition (no name yet I'm afraid) was in the opposite direction, from the relative safety of the shoreline, with the faint band of the Milky Way around Cassiopeia.

📷 Canon 6D with Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens
🔧 Sky: 5x 20s exposures at ISO3200 (using Kase Starglow filter). Foreground: 1x 205s exposure at ISO1600
🎞 Sky stacked in Sequator. Blended and edited in Photoshop and Lightroom.

 

Thanks for reading and, as ever, comments and hints welcome!!

Paul. 😊

[AstroNebulee]

Love reading the full report Paul as I always say about your work, it's just absolutely amazing and always look forward to seeing what you can do. I've only got one hint for you.... Just keep doing these beautiful images 👌

Lee 

[FenlandPaul]

7 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Love reading the full report Paul as I always say about your work, it's just absolutely amazing and always look forward to seeing what you can do. I've only got one hint for you.... Just keep doing these beautiful images 👌

Lee 

Thanks, Lee - I really appreciate that mate. I’ll keep doing them as long as I keep enjoying making them - which I suspect will be for a very long time. It’d be a shame not to get to AL #100!! 🤣

[JeremyS]

Splendid 👍🏻

[Greymouser]

That is truly superb. Thank you. Led me to look into the location a bit more. Interesting history. Here's some: https://community.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/b/east/posts/the-history-of-snettisham

I bet there is more out there...

[FenlandPaul]

8 minutes ago, Greymouser said:

That is truly superb. Thank you. Led me to look into the location a bit more. Interesting history. Here's some: https://community.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/b/east/posts/the-history-of-snettisham

I bet there is more out there...

Thanks for that extra info. These areas are super interesting. You always get a sense of the constant threat posed by storm surges in this part of the world (I see the RSPB lost a number of hides in the big 2013 surge); similar to our awareness of the river flood risk here in the Fens.

[clarkpm4242]

Great write-up @FenlandPaul appreciate seeing the images on a bigger screen!

The Orion composition is wonderful.

Hope the mud hasn't contaminated any kit...

...Paul

[FenlandPaul]

21 minutes ago, clarkpm4242 said:

Great write-up @FenlandPaul appreciate seeing the images on a bigger screen!

The Orion composition is wonderful.

Hope the mud hasn't contaminated any kit...

...Paul

Thanks Paul. 😊

My bag took an hour to clean yesterday; I’ve not tackled my tripods yet (still in the boot - out of sight out of mind!!).  Thankfully I managed to keep all lenses well away from the mud.

[GordonD]

Beautiful images. And brave, being in that mud.