After all the excitement of our weekend in the Yorkshire Dales, today we headed North to Kielder in Northumberland - the most remote village in England and one of the 'Dark Skies' locations for star gazing. We were quite sorry to leave our superb B&B in Skipton as it felt like we were leaving friends - Linda and Pete. I'd definitely stay there again for a few days when we next visit Hester and Brian.
Colin wanted to see Kielder Water and dam, we both wanted to go star watching and I wanted to see red squirrels. We are booked on a star watching experience at the Kielder Observatory on Thursday but wanted to get a head start this evening.
The sky cleared, we had the use of a telescope at our new B&B and I remembered the settings for my camera. The moon is at it's smallest at this time of the year so even less light. We got in position after sunset which was at 21.50. There was a big problem which we had not allowed for. It does not really get dark in this part of the country at this time of year until around 2.00am and then it only lasts for around an hour or so.
It simply was not dark enough! This shot which shows the Corona Borealis constellation in the top left and Ursa Major in the bottom right was taken at 23.59 (just scraping it as a 365 shot of the day) - note how blue, not black the sky is!!
Emma it is a great shot. Exposure was not very long given you have no star trails. Everything just works on this one. I have always wanted to try a long exposure centered on the north star. If the light is too much and if you have one try using an ND filter.....Well done@!
@pickerandagrinner Hi there, I would have liked to try star trails but it was simply too light. We have a session booked at the local observatory for this evening… cloud is forecast! Here's one I took last year… there was a 5 minute gap in the cloud in the Atacama desert (I thought it was always clear there!) http://365project.org/emmadurnford/2015-365-projec/2015-10-09
July 7th, 2016
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