Galaxy Quests

Well what a week that was! Three nights out under the stars chasing the first Milky Way images of the year and also been trying out a very spicy new filter too.

I visited the Photography Show last week and had a great time wandering among the stands with my daughter, who is a fantastic music photographer. She is a fan of film photography and it was good to see so many stands focussing on this up and coming format of photography!

My purpose for the visit though was to secure myself a Nisi Jetmag Pro Glow filter. This clever piece of glass gives some of the brighter stars in the night sky a nice glow around them, similar in effect to a black mist filter. With a hefty 25% show discount I managed to bag one along with the filter adapter needed to secure to my lens. Now, I was eager to try it out.

Luckily the weather this week proved very affable in my quest and I decided to try things out at my local tree Joe. This time of year the milky way doesnt show at Joe as it is too low in the sky to get over the hill the tree resides on but early evening was nearly as good with Jupiter showing above the constellation of Orion and Sirius shining brightly off to the left of that.

Even got a cheeky meteor in this image. Note the glow around the brighter stars? Thats the filter at work.

So now I had proof of concept it was time to give it a proper workout. I arranged to meet up with my mate and astro buddy Jack Lodge at Durdle Door. He had just finished a frenetic four days at the Photography Show but still had the energy and enthusiasm to go out and grab the first Milky Way images of the year! I wish I had his energy levels! Upon arrival at the designated meeting point I quickly realised I had made a rookie mistake and once again left my SD card at home! My backup wasn’t in the bag either but luckily the ever professional Jack had a spare I could lend for the night. Phew!

We made our way to the target for the night, Man’o War Cove which is right next door (pun intended) to the more famous Durdle Door. It, for me is the more interesting composition with better foreground interest and a lovely shape to the cove too. It turned out we were a tad early which gave time for jack to set up his Move Shoot Move tracker and get it all aligned properly with Polaris so it would track correctly. I watched on with interest as I intend to purchase one next month and wanted to see how easy it was to set up and operate. Turns out simple enough for my little brain!

We waited patiently for the rise of the Milky Way, and got to work once everything lined up. Here is my effort below but I would suggest you also check out Jacks on his Instagram as its a doozy!

15 shots of the sky stacked in Starry Landscape Stacker and one foreground shot, blended in PS for the final image

After the hated climb back up the hill we parted ways and I headed home a happy boy, arriving at my house just as dawn was breaking.

A couple of nights later and I was back out again, this time heading to Lulworth Cove to try to get the Milky way rising in the gap at the head of the bay. Annoyingly, two yachts were berthed in the cove with their mast lights blazing so I had to contend with those all night. There was no way to compose without them in the shot so I just had to grit the teeth and bear it. CoincidentallyJack was also there (I promise I am not stalking you Jack!) which meant I could return his SD card. He had a couple of clients with him this time so I left them to it and focussed on getting the best images I could.

Another cheeky meteor streaking through the core of the Milky Way. Single image

As you can see the lights were a proper pain but it gives me an incentive to return for another night. Also there was a lot of green airglow about. Airglow occurs in two forms, as a result of a pair of interlinked but different processes. Dayglow occurs during the day and is caused by the splitting of atmospheric molecules but is too faint to be seen in daylight. During the night airglow occurs as nightglow, when the molecules split during daytime recombine. Pulled that bit from Wiki!

So, a mostly successful week of Astrophotography in the bag. I would not have been able to do this if I had been at work still so already seeing a benefit to my photography! Also, I can thoroughly recommend the Nisi Jetmag Pro Glow mist filter. It is a beautifully engineered bit of glass that adds a nice effect to the night sky. Finally, big thanks again to Jack for the excellent company and the use of his SD card!

Thats it for this week

Toodles!