The First Night

After sunset there is a little time to wait for it to get completely dark, which is when the sun goes below the horizon such that there is absolutely no afterglow left in the sky. At the moment that is 10pm so this is when the heavens start shining at their clearest and brightest. It's also best when there is no moon and that is why I'm here this week.

I therefore had time to choose my spot and get my gear ready. It is very dark here so it was a little annoying that after a few minutes the batteries in my head torch failed and spares were at the apartment. 😳🙄 I managed though, as over time I've learned to work my cameras by touch and my phone was to hand in any case. I work mostly in the dark anyway.

The sky was fabulous and it's hard to describe just how clearly visible the Milky Way is here, and how sharp and bright the stars are. You can see so many more stars here than we see back home.

Once I started taking photos I was lost into another world and was amazed to discover it was suddenly 3am and time to drive back. It was a long drive but I was pretty much the only car, making negotiating all those bends much easier in the dark.

I arrived back safely and sleep arrived around 5am.

The photos in this footprint are clearly not taken on my phone. I haven't properly processed these yet, meaning the final versions will hopefully be better, but they give some idea of what I was doing until so late. To get good results, there's a lot more to this than taking a single photo of a scene.Read more