I have shared some astrophotography images previously here from 2017 but I managed to take a few more  towards the end of Milky way season last summer here on the Copper Coast. I always enjoy taking them as it is a much more relaxing experience , rather than rushing to catch a brief moment of good light, you simply wait for it to happen.

The primary intention is always still images and I generally try and find a decent composition and then stick with it as accurate recomposing can be quite difficult in the dark. Once I  start shooting I will generally just leave it on interval timer (settings for those wondering, usually F2.8, 20sec at ISO 3200) and since I had a sequence of images taken over  a couple of hours I taught I’d make a short time-lapse video as well. I have also included some of the sequences I have previously shared but re-edited.

Just something I’d like to share on the processing, I’ve used a different software to compile the timelapse called LRtimelapse. I took a bit of getting used to but found it very good. It works like an addon to Lightroom and essentially ramps edits across the sequence and “deflickers” the images before compiling them into a sequence. The beauty is that you can still do the editing in Lightroom as you usually would. I have just used the free version which has a lot of the key features, maybe the one you might miss is the ability to produce a 4k sequence, but 1080p is fine for sharing on social media. The software will produce a final movie for you but also produces a sequence of jpegs which I chose to import into Final Cut pro and compile the timelapse in there as I could specify the frame rate myself (as some of the sequences were quit short).

So here’s the video, short and sweet (please excuse selfie shoot at the end, its against all my principles but maybe it was the overpowering influence of the @wildernessinfluencer, (if you know you know :) ) .  Just a bit of fun as we packed up to leave on one of the nights.