stars

[PaulR]

I spent last weekend in a dark corner of Wales, staying in a yurt.  Took a few photos of the stars including this one of the northern end of Cygnus, taken with an unmodified Canon 1000D and a 50mm f1.8 lens stopped down a bit and mounted on a motorised mount for an 80 second (or thereabouts) exposure.  There are some nice bits of glowing red hydrogen showing through, including NGC7000 (The North America Nebula).  Is that OT enough?

[DrBru]

Nice. Which mount??
You can even see a bit of the Pelican nebula, if you know which bit to squint at...

[PaulR]

It was on a Vixen GP.  If properly polar aligned it should be able to churn out some much longer exposures than this one.

I'm kicking myself that I didn't do a better job (I'd been partying all evening, had failed to polar align properly, was being eaten alive by insects and had nothing the clear the dew off the lens).  Heaven knows when I'm next going to see skies that good again.

[border-rider]

Where was your yurt ?

[clarion]

Can't you work it out from the configuration of the heavens?

[PaulR]

Where was your yurt ?

between the stream and the alpacas

near Llanishen (the one just south of Raglan rather than the Cardiff one)

[Moloko]

 

I've now got <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/44DlSj6bnn4&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/44DlSj6bnn4&rel=1</a> singing away to me.

[border-rider]

Where was your yurt ?

between the stream and the alpacas

near Llanishen (the one just south of Raglan rather than the Cardiff one)

I wondered.  Hidden Valley Yurts.

I'm trying to buy a house very near there.  Lovely place. 

We live just  a few miles away currently.

[Jurek]

Wow!  
That's OT enough

[PaulR]

I had wondered when I was next going to see a sky like that one in Wales.  Well, I've seen far better since then, in Oz and NZ, but have just had a pleasant reminder of how amazing our own galaxy can look.  Here's a shot (about a minute's exposure) taken from the patio of the house where we stayed, just west of Cahors.  Great cycling country, great night skies.

Milky Way setting over Touzac by PaulRide, on Flickr

[PaulR]

and more, this time from just outside Helmsley.  A single 3 minute exposure through an ancient Super Takumar 135mm lens.

[Peter]

Paul, is that the Andromeda galaxy?  I notice a "tiny" one above it.

[PaulR]

Yes, it is indeed, complete with its companions M32 and M110.

[Riggers]

No Pics, but the sky was incredibly clear at 4.30am this morning, as I was ostensibly, trying to discover where exactly the sodding cat was in our garden, that was making a god-awful noise, whilst being stark naked.

No wind, warm weather, and the stars were so distinct to be mesmerising. Beautiful stuff.

Didn't find the cat.