Recent content by alan72

Never at all. I felt that artistic capabilities completely bypassed me and went to my sister. I can’t play a note, have no drawing ability and at sports excelled at cycling in disciplines best described as brute strength and ignorance. I have always enjoyed others creativity and looking at...

Terrible news, a very talented and inspirational person.

They have different uses for me, PhotoPills and the ephemeris are good for planning in map mode, I find PhotoPills artificial reality view more user friendly than the ephemeris when on location. Stellarium is good for visualising and shows you the other sky objects beyond just the MW core but...

You can download Stellarium for free to your pc which will help you plan what you will see where and when.. You can get some Milky Way all year but the core won’t be visible yet. In February you’ll get a bit in the very early hours before dawn. The evening portion with Orion and andromeda...

A couple of recent night out, constructive C&C welcome. At xmas I could get out but the skies were cloudy, so a trip to a well known bridge fort he view to Battersea. I went for a simpler image, less light trails. It would have been nice if the rails on the left were in use but the did not...

I guess this is the winter Milky Way up here in the northern hemisphere? It is quite faint and there is not a lot to being out. I would say you’ve done a decent job, keep any brushes / mask soft and build up opacity. Use contrast / curves, some people use clarity but personally I stay away...

That’s nice, well done!

I must admit the tracking element does start to bring in much more processing, then you start to do mosaics for detail! And it escalates but as you say you do get a lovely final image. I did single exposures for a good few years but don’t think I would go back to it despite the processing...

Like that, nice and atmospheric.

I managed to get a pass for a few days photography back in September. Luckily I got 2 super clear nights for astro whilst I was away down on the south coast. I have been waiting to get the milky way at Bodiam Castle for a couple of years but timing and conditions never aligned. But on this...

Nice shots, are these taken from the viewpoint? I’ve often wondered about a sunrise from there.

Lovely image, agree the birds really add something.

Superb images!

Nicely done, it can be tricky to get an even lighting with painting but you’ve done well here. It might be nice to have a bit more foreground. Sometimes I use the torch on the foreground with live view on to frame up, or take a couple of shots with really high iso just to make sure the framing...

Nicely done, there are some good YouTube vids out there on MW processing, Nick Page, Alyn Wallace, Royce Bair. Experiment and have fun! And it’s as important what you put in the foreground beneath the stars as much as the stars themselves!