Author | Lightnews

Lewis Bray @adastranightscapes.bsky.social · Oct 6

Enjoying the dark skies and ruins of Llanthony Priory in South Wales. There's a real sense of amazement wonder in a place like this - perfect for #astrophotography

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Lewis Bray @adastranightscapes.bsky.social · Sep 19

I've neglected my blue sky account again! Making up for it with a #milkyway shot from my hotel balcony last month in #madeira
This took some processing work to cut through the Funchal light pollution!

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Lewis Bray @adastranightscapes.bsky.social · Jun 30

Some more from last night's vivid #noctilucentcloud display. This is a 12-panel pano, so be sure to open the image up for the whole thing. Also featuring #mars and the #moon

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Lewis Bray @adastranightscapes.bsky.social · Jun 30

According to my bio I'm usually found cursing at the clouds. Last night was a bit different though...

#noctilucentclouds #wales #nightscape

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Lewis Bray @adastranightscapes.bsky.social · Mar 23

Interested to see from other #astrophotography peeps what the best dark sky you've ever been to looks like in an unprocessed, straight out of the camera image? I took a photo from the south coast of Madeira last year and the #milkyway was so bright that I thought it was cloud at first!

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Lewis Bray @adastranightscapes.bsky.social · Mar 21

70 minutes well spent on a crystal clear night this week. Whipped out the 85mm f/1.8 lens and got tracking a widefield of Pleiades. Shocked at how much dust showed up in the final image! 🤩

#astrophotography
#pleiades
#m45

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Lewis Bray @adastranightscapes.bsky.social · Mar 3

That's an ideal lens! If you stop the lens down to F/2.8 and focus in on the constellation of Orion (the whole thing will fit easily in frame at 35mm) then you can comfortably take 6-8 second exposures without a tracker. Use your ISO to control the brightness and you have a working astro rig!

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Lewis Bray @adastranightscapes.bsky.social · Mar 3

I forgot the tracker! That's an extra expense but mine was around £250

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Lewis Bray @adastranightscapes.bsky.social · Mar 3

Not at all! It can get expensive, but this image was taken on a budget, 9 year old camera (around £400), a tripod (mine was around £120) a wide angle lens (bought used for (£75) and a remote shutter trigger (about £10). If you already have a DSLR then you are halfway there!

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Lewis Bray @adastranightscapes.bsky.social · Mar 3

Thank you!

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Lewis Bray @adastranightscapes.bsky.social · Mar 3

10-panel panorama of the milkyway arching over the #bannaubrycheiniog
All 30-second untracked single shots, stitched and processed in lightroom only. That airglow was wild! Such a dark sky lets the camera pick up some much faint colour
#nightscape #astrophotography #milkyway

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Lewis Bray @adastranightscapes.bsky.social · Feb 9

When you have clear skies but forgot to charge your star tracker - STAR TRAILS TIME!

#startrails #nightphotography #nightscape

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Lewis Bray @adastranightscapes.bsky.social · Jan 6

Once you get on to using a tracking mount you can do longer exposures with bigger lenses and your aperture doesn't matter quite as critically.
For a resource, I can't recommend highly enough the book "Photographing the night sky" by the late, great Alyn Wallace.

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Lewis Bray @adastranightscapes.bsky.social · Jan 6

Thanks Andrew!
For this image I was using a 24mm f/2.8 lens. For this kind of image you want something wide (14-50mm) and fast f/2.8 or lower. That will allow you to take in a large part of the sky and capture light quickly without star trails showing up.

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