All thing's Skywards.

Besides my aviation and railways, I have a huge interest in Astronomy. It's a wonderful feeling looking up at the night sky and feeling really insignificant. I've moved on to photographing the night sky since I started learning a few things, so I thought I'd share a couple with you. These are my best attempts so far, but I'm planning bigger things..;-)

The International Space Station passes over St. Nicholas Church, near to my house. I say it's passing over near to me: It was actually over mid-France at this point.


The constellation of Cygnus is viewed between trees at the same location.


This was my first attempt at shooting star trails. The image is made up of 40 images taken at 15 seconds each and then stacked on a special piece of software.


I do hope we like something a little different. :mrgreen:

Certainly different Sam. Not railways ,but most interesting

Groovy, Sam.  :thumbs   What photo equipment do you use?

I don't have to look up into the night sky to feel really insignificant; I AM really insignificant!

Very nice photo's there, Sam. Thanks for sharing them with us.

Perry

Yes, very nice pics. I love the night sky when it's clear. We get quite a bit of light pollution here but a trip to the country gives a much better result, especially in our (Australian) Winter.

Thank you for the comments guys.

It's all my bog standard Kit Max:

Canon EOS-400D and a 18-55mm f/3.5 lens.

Nice pics Sam. :thumbs

We have no light pollution here so often have what we call a "big sky" to watch.  I don't remember skies like we get here since I was a kid in Yorkshire - the only street lighting then was the odd gas lamp and what few cars there were, had terrible lights.

I have no idea what star is what and trying to work out the constellations makes me go crazy !!  There are the odd few that are immediately recognisable - the Plough and Orion being a couple of obvious ones but trying to make a swan out of your Cygnus Sam, is a bit like trying to make sense of Picasso ……………………

Re the star trails, do you have a "B" setting on your camera ?  Many modern ones don't but if you have, you could simply find somewhere as dark as possible, set the smallest aperture you have and lock the shutter open.  The stars themselves will do the rest for you ……….

Have you taken any of the moon ?  Sometimes you can get some crackers and it's not difficult to spot :roll::roll::roll:

I don't know about the 400d but the 300 won't let you lock the shutter open.  However as the 300d was actually a 10d in a plastic body with functions turned off there was a hack to turn them back on. I think canon did an astrology version of the 400d.  Sam is the lens the placcy one you get with the kit?  If it is you will find it's very soft, it's worth investing in something like a 50mm prime lens for this sort of stuff.

Hth

Jim

nice shots ,Sam,always interested in the sky

Great shots Sam, I've always been interested in the sky at night but have never taken any photos, probably due to the lack of decent cameras and equipment.:thumbs

Fascinating, Sam:thumbs  How did you know that that was the ISS?  Is there a website that gives details of orbits and times etc