Saturday 13 April 2019

A night of astrophotography in Fuerteventura

A week's family holiday in Fuerteventura and I have been planning the weather/hire car combo for weeks!
As it turned out, I had to wait until the last night to get clear skies and access to a car so I could find some dark skies.
With just a little light pollution from a nearby village (Pozo Negro), the sky was very dark, with the entire Milky Way arch visible to the naked eye.
I took a tracked (4min @ ISO400) shot using my new MoveShootMove tracker, which turned out great.


Canon 77D, Sigma 10-20mm F4.0, 4mins @ ISO400 on MooveShootMove tracker
  
  
I then tried to get 4 more shots to get the full MW arch as a panorama, which seemed to work well, but once I got back home to edit, I noticed that the tracking is out after the first 2 shots, so the majority of the image has streaking stars. Oh well... Will be more careful next time!
Interesting to see the light pollution, even in a very dark area. The central glow is from a handful of streetlights in the nearby (2 miles) village and the glow on the left is from the large town of Calete de Fuste, about 10 miles away. There's no escaping those damn streetlights!

Canon 77D, Sigma 10-20mm F4.0, 5x 4mins @ ISO400 on MooveShootMove tracker, then stitched into a panorama using Microsoft ICE (PTGUI couldn't manage it!)


I also tried a 9xshot 20s @ ISO3200 and stacked using Sequator. Quite pleased with the results and it's good to compare quality with the tracked shot...Also got a similar one of the hire car under the MW.



Canon 77D, Sigma 10-20mm F4.0, 9 x 20sec @ ISO3200, stacked on Sequator
Canon 77D, Sigma 10-20mm F4.0, 9 x 20sec @ ISO3200, stacked on Sequator


As dawn was breaking, I headed to the coast and got this last shot of the Milky Way hanging on as dawn breaks..


Canon 77D, Sigma 10-20mm F4.0, 4 x 20sec @ ISO3200, stacked on Sequator



All in all, a great night and I'm pleased with how much I've squeezed from my mid-range kit, just by using all the tools available (tracking, stacking....etc).

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