So the plan this week was to go to Snowdonia in Wales, climb a mountain overlooking Triffan and wild camp on top to capture sunset, sunrise and some Astro nightscapes with Mt Triffan as the backdrop.
One look at the forecast made me slam the brakes on that idea . Wales was probably going to be a nightmare perched on top of a mountain with the chance of lightning strikes and heavy rain.
I made a U turn and headed to Dorset. The weather was predicted to be almost as crap, but you never know...
I know a small camp site at Steeple Lease and they only charge £8 per person for the night. I love this camp site - no booking required and there is always room at the inn.
I arrived at the site, had dinner and set of to capture some sunsets. It was all looking spectacular and suddenly as I was setting up for some shots the amazing light died a sudden death.
I always have a plan B if I travel any distance and so had pre-planned for some Astro over dinner in the camper-van and knew from the PILS app that the Milky-way would appear near Clavell Tower in Kimmeridge if I got the angle right. I carted my kit through the military ranges which had been left open to the public for that weekend…don’t go if they are firing - it could get a bit hairy!
I had a chat with a local guy and explained the plan. I explained that the Milky-way would be and he had seen some previous images with the milky-way on the internet. He wondered if the milky-way could be seen with the naked eye. The answer to this - on that night..YES! It is much fainter with the naked eye than you see in the image I took as the camera brings it all out and you can only see the true core with the cameras assistance. Hopefully he has logged in and seen the result. Bottom line is that you can see the milky-way with the naked eye in Kimmeridge on a good night. So if you are local, every so often take a beer and sit on the beech and contemplate at the universe and realise how lucky you are to have such clear skies
With it still being summer and August, the Milky way is now a bit limited with its core being best seen between 11pm and 12am. But the moon was not due until 2am (which would wash out the milky-way) so we were in luck.
I banged the tripod down on Kimmeridge ledges and stuck the Canon on with the wide angle lens. Wow!
So we were off to a great start. Clavell tower was giving some illumination even on the Ledge I was standing on. This shot is taken with a canon EOS -R and a Canon 15-35 L f4 lens @15mm (A panoramic of two images stitched) Exposure ISO 6400 @ 25 seconds and F2.8 - Tripod used.
I loved the image, but before I went I needed a selfie. - I promise I did not use an i-phone for this one.
I would be interested in which one you prefer. I like the top image.