Astro-landscape images from the beach
Each year Philip Island hosts their Annual Whale Festival. It’s a good excuse to get out of the house for a weekend of cetacean-based learning, fresh air and the opportunity to get some astro images.
Some of the Festival’s lectures are very interesting - this year it was a pair of lectures on whale evolution and one on the (sadly now extinct) Giant Killer Sperm Whales. If you can get along to it, I recommend it.
I was lucky this year - the night was clear with only a gentle breeze. It was pretty cold, though, and I didn’t stay out too late.
Image data:
- ISO: Either 1600 or 3200, depending on the subject
- Temperature: Cold
- Exposure: 20, 25 or 30 seconds depending on the subject
Equipment: Samyang 14mm f2.8 (stopped down to f3.5), Nikon D7100
The Samyang has some interesting distortion effects in the corners. This is inherent to all wide-angle lenses, and whilst it can be reduced with clever image processing (thankfully built into Affinity Photo) it’s still there if you go pixel-peeping.
The first image of the night. After a couple of hours the galaxy was too high in the sky to capture it in the frame with the horizon. The brighter orange star to the top-left is Arcturus, part of the constellation Scorpio. You can also see Messier 7 just below Scorpio’s tail.
The galactic Core rises over the hills
Having a bit of fun with one of the many signs along the foreshore. Who wouldn’t want to camp out under the stars like this?
Spoiling all the fun...
Yeah, it’s a stereotypical image, but I had to get at least one image of star trails. This is 50 frames, each 30 seconds long stacked and massaged to show the breaking surf and the grass in the foreground.
Star trails Image 1
A slightly different star trails, trying out “Comet mode” in my stacking program.
Star trails Image 2
Trying to capture an interesting image of the Galactic Core when it got too high in the sky to easily capture.
Why is the Galaxy so shy?
I didn’t expect to capture this one - the sky glow from Melbourne is pretty bad, and usually stops you capturing a good image. However, in this instance it all worked out well - the tree was in just the right place to create an interesting shot, and the sky was dark enough that stars are clearly visible.
