Description
Moorlough, Donemana, Strabane, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
A few nights ago I caught our Milky Way right-handed! posing vainly into her lake mirrored reflection ?♀️ This is the first time I managed to capture an actual reflection of our Milky Ways core. There was no breeze nor rain, which in return aided Moorlough’s surface to act like a giant cosmic mirror. This reflected our heavens for a mere 15 mins before a cool mountain mist rolled in & curtain called the show.
Conditions were perfect to try out my new ‘IOptron Starguider Pro’ tracker kit. This is a motorised piece of tech which sits between my camera & the tripod which rotates slowly to counteract the earth’s spin. In short it means I can take much longer exposures of the stars & planets than I could previously. For example instead of my usual 20 seconds max, this photo is a 70 second exposure which brings out much more colour & details in the Milky Way. Although with more practice aligning the north star & balancing the counterweight kit, I will hopefully be able to capture 5 minute exposures & beyond ? thus gaining better quality night sky photos in future to share with you.
If you look to the bottom left you can see the planets Saturn & Jupiter, above are 2 Perseid meteors which streaked past during this 70 second capture.
Throughout the year there’s nights so clear that you can literally stand motionless in total awe, staring back in time billions of light-years into our heavens. I’ve always been fascinated with astronomy & on clear nights like this one, I can travel alone into absolute darkness & gaze straight into the core of our Milky Way galaxy billions of miles away, wondering all those geeky questions that may not or cannot be answered within my lifetime ⏳
