Made the most of some clear skies and no moon last week and went up the road an hour to Gretna for some Milky Way action.

Here the Galactic Core is rising over the church of St Mary the Virgin (Anglican) in Gretna. I'd only scoped this spot on Google Earth so was pretty happy with the result. There are some transmission lines in the background that were a little more prominent than expected.

I'd also expected to light paint the graveyard and the church (built in 1848) but those pics didn't really work for me. This pic is an accident - while the shutter was open, I accidentally locked and unlocked the car just off to the right of camera. Seemed to be just the right amount of light. A happy accident!

This is a single frame and I have purposefully not corrected it for distortion. I wanted to maximize the MW and the foreground.

Took another couple of frames with the SkyTracker but the fog came down before I'd set up properly meaning it was time to go home!

Interestingly the sky glow at the lower right is from the city of Hobart 50k away eastward, the lights at the Elwick race track in particular!

Nikon Z6, Samyang 14/2.8, 25 secs at f/3.5, ISO 3200

Tags:   Gretna Tasmania Hobart Tasmania Hobart Milky Way astrophotography Galaxy Core Milky Way Galaxy Milky Way Core stars long exposure Lonely Speck nightscape night photography NIK Collection ColorEfexPro Colorefex Pro 2 DFINE 2 Church graveyard tombstones Nikon Nikon Z6 Nikon Mirrorless Z6 Samyang Samyang 14mm Samyang 14mm f/2.8 Samyang 14mm f/2.8 IF ED UMC Ultr-Wide Angle Wide Angle

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For folks in the Northern Hemisphere... an upside down Orion and what is for us the 'northern' end of the Milky Way Galaxy over the beach at Binalong Bay. Tasmania.

We wanted to shoot the rising MW core, 180º behind us, but the onshore wind and cloud on the southern side of the point had other plans. The beach and Devonian granite rocks here are well lit by streetlights and there were two yachts at anchor at the centre-right rolling themselves to bits.

Nikon Z6, Samyang 14mm f/2.8 (Z mount), 30 secs at f/2.8, ISO 2500. Single exposure.

This copy of the lens (purchased off gumtree) is not particuarly sharp despite a couple of attempts at infinity adjustment and it's also de-centred - look at the rocks and stars on the right. Mushy-as. I'll try to shim the mount screws but it's probably going to be into the bin with it. 😕 Lucky it was cheap. Should've shot the Nikkor Z 20mm f/1.8 which was in the bag beside me. No excuses.

Tags:   astro Astrophotography Wide Field Astrophotography Milky Way Milky Way Galaxy Orion Wide Angle wide angle primes Wide Angle Lens Samyang 14mm f/2.8 Z Samyang Samyang Lenses Binalong Bay Binalong beachcombing larapuna Tas lutruwita Tasmania Tassie Tassie Style Bay of Fires Granite Devonian Granite beach sand rocks streetlights Long Exposure Long Exposure Photography Seascape Seascapes astroscape starscape

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