Under The Stars

Canon EF 24 - 105 mm F/4 L IS USM

ISO 2000   24mm  F/4   30 sec

Canon EF 17 - 40 mm  F/4 L USM

ISO 800  17mm  F/4  25 sec

I had planned a night away camping last night but at the last minute I decided that I would drive up to stone circle at Castlerigg in Cumbria to take some shots of the night sky and really hoping to get a nice shot of the galactic core of the Milky Way.

Whenever I go camping I like to try a few long exposures while star gazing but in the past the conditions have never been right with the moon in the wrong phase and just to bright, or there has been too much light pollution. I guess that it one of the problems of living in the UK there are too few places where you can find a really dark night sky.

I have been inspired recently by photographers in Canada who have shared really beautiful images of the Milky Way shot across Lake Superior or other places where the night sky is naturally dark and so the stars stand out sharp and clear.  Last March I had camped near Keswick and I spoke with another photographer who had been up to Castlerigg to photograph the night sky and I figured that it would potentially be a very good spot.

The stone circle is a magical place, over 5000 years old and I have enjoyed visiting a few times over the past year and a half, no doubt I will be back again because I love the atmosphere and sense of history. Usually it is very busy with lots of other visitors so the idea of visiting at a time when most other people are home and in bed and the possibility of having the place to myself was something I relished.

We have enjoyed some fantastic weather recently with beautiful clear skies day and night and with the new moon on the 13th I figured the conditions would be perfect. Then on Thursday the weather changed and while temperatures stayed high it was cloudy and wet so I thought I would have to change my plans. The Met Office however predicted clear skies overnight at Castlerigg so I made up my mind to take a chance and although the timings were not quite right the clouds broke up around 2 am so I was able to get a few shots, two of which you can see above.

Although the sky seemed really dark I think I had missed the darkest period (due to cloud cover) and although it seemed totally dark with the long exposures necessary it became clear that there was a great deal more ambient light than I thought and as you can see there is an orange glow along the horizon from nearby town of Keswick.

Nevertheless I was pleased to capture such an array of stars.

In the first picture the bright spot in the centre is actually Mars. I had thought it was Saturn at first and was focusing on that area because that is where the core of the Milky Way would be brightest. In fact Saturn is the bright star on the far right of the image and you can  just about see the galactic core rising upwards from the bottom right corner.

The second image was shot using a wider angled lens and positioned low down facing what appears to be an entrance to the circle. Mars is visible again in the centre, in this shot Saturn is not visible as it is hidden by the right hand column but you can possible make out the core of stars rising above the column but this is much fainter in this image as it was a shorter exposure and the ambient light washing things out.

I have more shots from the night and from the sunrise too but I will come back to those at a future date (tomorrow I will return to some of my roadtrip photos). I will also be looking for other opportunities to shoot the night sky and hopefully I can find a place that is truly dark so I can get even better images of the stars.