Startrails

I was hoping for a clear night to do this. The view from my father and Diana's house is outstanding and the tide played in my favour.

Ok, not the best you've seen! The wind was awful, and it wasn't the clear night I'd hoped for. I went to bed under thick cloud and with a thick head from too much good wine and woke up to see the stars at 2.30am. I managed to set up on the lawn and got two series of shots. One combination I can't use and this is all I could combine of a second series as the wind rocked the tripod after the last of these shots and I ran out of battery!

The next time I'm up in Argyll, weather permitting, I'll try again but I will do a couple of things in preparation. I'll try to set up on the hill above the house and I'll ring Robin and ask him to turn off all the lights in Duntrune Castle.

There is only one habitation in sight!!! Damn light pollution. :))

For those that are interested. This is a combination of around twelve 30" exposures. I used a 10mm lens length and opened the aperture to infinity and back a touch. the images were combined in a free to download program at Startrails.de. The resulting image was opened in Photoshop where I adjusted the contrast and toned down excess light on the wall, caused by a small table lamp in the sitting room. The tones of the beach have been brought out by the number of images used in the combination. I'd have loved to try a better version but it was my only chance. I will try now I'm back at home but, so close to london, there is far too much light pollution and too many planes flying overhead. The three yellowish trials in the left of the image are Shooting stars!!