Night sky in the SW Alentejo coast

About one week ago I was in the village of Longueira, in the Alentejo coast. I had planned a photo session of the night sky during the new moon phase, when the sky is at its darkest. I chose a coastal location, at Foz dos Ouriços, near Almograve. Even though there are slightly darker places in the region towards the interior, the coast here is still dark, featuring a Bortle class 4.

Foz dos Ouriços sky brightness map, Bortle class 4.

In terms of gear, I brought with me for this session the Fujifilm X-T3 camera and Fujinon 16mm f/1.4 lens, plus the tripod. I like to do star trails, using exposures of 30 sec. at f/2 and ISO 1600. From my experience, these settings work quite well. After focusing the lens manually on a bright star, it is simply a matter of setting the intervalometer in the camera, fire the shutter, lie down, relax, and admire the sky.

The first framing was towards the northwest, to include part of the beach below and the sea. The total time in the final image was 45 minutes. I use Sequator to stack the exposures (star trail option), it is a nice and simple software.

Star trail #1 – 90 images stacked, 30 seconds each.

For the second trail, I selected a framing towards the north, to obtain the classic view of the concentric star trails around Polaris. For this framing I chose 120 exposures of 30 seconds each, resulting in a total time of 1 hour. In both cases I also shot a couple of dark frames, to help with noise reduction during the stacking process.

Star trail #1 – 120 images stacked, 30 seconds each.

Following the star trails, I made a few photos of the Milky Way, also for later stacking in Sequator. Given that I did not want the stars to trail, I used exposures of 15 seconds, and shot 20 images in total. After stacking in Sequator (with the accumulation option), the result for the 20 images showed a nice Milky Way, but the land part of the composition had trailed; this was expected, because I had a total time of 5 minutes. The best way to avoid this is to mount the camera on a dedicated tracker, but I do not own one.

Milky Way – 20 images stacked, 15 seconds each. Total time of 5 minutes. We can see that the land part shows trailing.

After a few extra runs in Sequator, I decided on an image stacking 4 exposures, which gives a total time of 1 minute. This still gives nice detail in the Milky Way, while reducing the land trailing.

Milky Way – 4 images stacked, 15 seconds each.

If you can, summer in the northern hemisphere is an excellent time to be out at night and photograph the sky. With modern cameras and software, it is quite easy to obtain good results.

Night sky photography in the countryside

Summer is an excellent time to be out in the field photographing the night sky. At a dark site location during the new Moon, and with clear skies, conditions are good to make some interesting photos such as star trails and the Milky Way. It is better to choose a place as far from light pollution as possible, so you have a clear and detailed view of the stars. In the region of Odemira, I like to go to the rural interior, far away from the coastal villages. I like to go to an area between Odemira and Sabóia that I know from past experience to be quite dark. There is a small hill with a ruined farmhouse that faces south, so it provides an interesting foreground for a star trail. Below is a photo that I made a few months ago.

Farmhouse on the hill.

According to light pollution maps, this location has a classification of 3 on the Bortle scale (rural sky), which means that there is some light pollution in the horizon and the Milky Way’s complex structure is visible. Below you can see the map with the classification.

Map with Bortle classification.

I arrived at the location with enough time to set up my tripod and camera, selecting a composition featuring the farmhouse in the foreground. My 14mm wide-angle lens is only f/2.8, which is not ideal for night sky photography. Still, with some careful workflow, the results can be good. My camera has an intervalometer, so it is easy to set it up for shooting a series of consecutive frames to be assembled later in Sequator, the software that I use for building the star trails and stacks. I normally shoot Raw, f/2.8, 30 seconds, and ISO 1600. This works fine with Fuji X cameras.

For star trails, it is important to turn off the long exposure noise reduction, as that would take an extra 30 seconds dark frame after each shot, doubling exposure time and introducing gaps in the trail. Then, you just select how many frames you need to achieve the total exposure time you want your trail to have. I normally aim for about 1 hour total time, as that provides a nice circular trail around Polaris.

Star trail.

After finishing the star trail shooting, I also took some photos of the Milky Way, to stack later in Sequator using the “align stars” option. Usually I take between 6 and 10 photos for each stack. If there is some “land” in the frame, ground features will be blurry as result of the Earth’s movement.

Milky Way: stack of several photos.
Milky Way: stack of several photos.

For comparison, the following photos are single exposures of the Milky Way over the surrounding countryside. These do not have the blurriness of the land features (such as trees), but have less light gathered, compared to the stacked ones. I like the results from both options.

Milky Way – single photo.
Milky Way – single photo.

I always enjoy photographing the night sky, and look forward for the next opportunity to do so.

Night sky near Sabóia, Odemira

This is a small essay about a recent photo session I have carried out to photograph some star trails and the Milky Way near Sabóia, in the municipality of Odemira. I had recently visited this same location, taking some photos of the countryside and the hay bales along the fields. I wrote about it here:

During this previous visit, I thought the place had potential for some night sky photography; being far away from any important village, it would probably be very dark during a new Moon period. I have thus made plans to go back, which I did a few days ago. I arrived well after dark, and set up my tripod and camera in order to frame some of the interesting foreground, including some hay bales and machinery.

Technically, I have used my wide angle lens (Fujinon 14mm f/2.8) wide open, and a shutter speed of 30 seconds, at ISO 1600. Using manual focus, I carefully focused on a bright star. I have also shot in Raw format, setting the intervalometer of the camera to 80 photos. This would result in a total of 40 minutes total exposure time. Later on, I have used the Sequator software to stack the resulting images into a star trail.

Resulting star trail.
Example of a single photo used in the final stack.

After finishing the series for trail stacking, I made a couple more series of shots, this time of the Milky Way. The first series was made with the wide angle lens, and consisted of 20 photos. These were later stacked also in Sequator.

Milky Way – wide angle lens.

The second series was made with a different lens, the Fujinon 35mm f/1.4, set at f/2 aperture. For this series, I made 10 photos, and also used Sequator for stacking.

Milky Way – standard lens.

In terms of image processing, I have followed the general guidelines as outlined by Roger Clark in his website:

https://clarkvision.com/articles/astrophotography.image.processing2/

Being out in this isolated place, admiring the immense field of stars that surrounds us was a very nice experience. Now that the summer is approaching, I will repeat these sessions whenever possible.

Rural landscapes in the summer, plus comet Neowise

Summer in the southwest Alentejo natural park is usually a very busy season, with a large number of people choosing the area for vacation. The main attraction are the many pristine beaches that exist along the coastline and that allow a well deserved rest in a natural and quiet setting. This bit of coastline is probably one of the last “wild” ones in Europe.

I spent a short vacation in the region last week, and noticed that this year the number of visitors had dropped considerably. No doubt the result of the ongoing pandemic crisis. The impact on the local economy will be significant, as in many parts of the World where tourism is a large part of the local income.

For this trip I had no definite plans concerning particular photographic endeavours. Weather permitting, I was hoping to spot comet Neowise after sunset, and go out to photograph the rural fields dotted with the typical hay bales. One of the things I like best about this area is the sea versus land dicotomy that is always present: only a couple of kilometres inland from the coast, the landscape is dominated by rolling hills and rural farmland. If it weren’t for the sea breeze, one might be well within the interior of the country. A true surf ´turf of geographic and climatic nature.

I had previously spotted a few places with abundant hay bales, but I wanted to find a location where they would be complemented by the native cork oak tree, to add a bit more of interest and context to my photos. I found such a place near the island of Pessegueiro, between Milfontes and Porto Covo. After parking the car, I started to walk around looking for potential frames in my mind. I had about 1 hour before sunset, so I was in no rush to start shooting. I normally take my time before setting up the tripod, just familiarizing myself with the surroundings and the light.

Pessegueiro island. There are Roman archaelogical remains (fishing station), plus a ruined late XVI century fort.
Endless.

The light had a nice golden quality to it, thanks to the approaching sunset; shadows from the bales were long, complemented by some soft wispy clouds. For some photos I used a polarizer filter to enhance the sky and define the clouds a bit more. I kept moving around and trying different angles, to include the farm houses, the trees, the distant hills and some wind turbines.

Bale and cork oak tree.
Farmland.
Paired.

Besides using a wide angle lens for greater depth and context, I also used a telephoto lens to isolate the subjects a bit more. Like in the previous photo, and the following ones.

Leaning.
Power lines.
Rural energy.
Sunset.
Sunset.

What about the comet? I went to a dark area after dinner, at around 10.30 pm. I knew it would be visible to the northwest, just below the Big Dipper. It was actually easy to find with the naked eye, and it was a great experience seeing it with binoculars. I set up the camera on the tripod and took a few shots, testing the shutter speed to avoid star trailing. There was some atmospheric haze (the day had been very hot) that affected the visibility, as the comet is not very high above the horizon. But overall I am happy with the results, and above all I felt privileged for being able to witness such a spectacular visitor.

Neowise.
Neowise.

I was glad I went out for the comet that night, because for the next 2 days the entire coast was covered in fog!

Night photography in Santa Clara a Velha

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to carry out a night photography session in a reasonably dark area near the village of Santa Clara a Velha, in Odemira municipality (southern Portugal). A few months ago, when I walked a trail between the villages of Santa Clara a Velha and Sabóia, I passed through a ruined windmill at the top of a hill. The place afforded a clear and nice view to the North, over the rolling landscape. At the time, I made a mental note about returning to the location during the Summer, for some start trail and night shooting.

Fast forward in time, and I went back on the night of 30th August, during New Moon. I arrived at Santa Clara a Velha around 8 pm, parked the car, and took the trail up the hill, to the windmill. I had packed a small chair, plus a light dinner and a flask of hot tea, which proved nice to have a few hours later, as the night settled in. I wanted to arrive at the location before night fall, to facilitate setting up the tripod, camera, and lens. I had with me the Fujifilm X-T2 and Fujinon 16mm f/1.4 lens, plus a head lamp. At sunset time, I took a few nice photos of the village down below, and even happened to catch a lone biker coming up hill in his mountain bike. Other than that, it was a very peaceful night from then onwards, with only the sound of birds and crickets as company.

I proceeded to find the North and frame the ruin of the windmill in the lower right hand of the composition. My plan was to have a nice rotating star trail around the windmill, centred on Polaris. I manually focused the lens, set at f/2, and left it untouched for the remaining of the night. The plan was to use the interval timer plus T mode of the camera, to shoot about 1.5 hours total exposure time. This means 181 photos at 30 seconds each. Finally, my ISO was 1600. To me, part of the fun to do this type of photography is being out in the Nature at night and enjoy the star rich sky in a dark location. In the meantime, as the temperature was dropping, I took a few cups of hot tea.

After shooting the star trail, I also took a few series of shots of the Milky Way: 10 in total, for later stacking. I was packing up my gear when I noticed the Pleiades rising on the East, so I took another series of photos. There was some light pollution, coming from the nearby villages and a main road in the distance, but I was happy with the results. After a good session, I was confident that I had some good images to work from, so I returned to the car. Before leaving the village, I made a few night shots of the church, which was illuminated. On the way back, I also stopped at the train station of Sabóia; the place had an eerie feeling about it, very different from the daytime.

In terms of image processing, I have used Sequator to stack the photos. In the past I have used Star Stax, a good programme too, but Sequator has a couple more useful options, like the ability to separate the “land” from the “sky” part of the image.

Location
Location

Lone biker
Lone biker

Dusk over Santa Clara a Velha
Dusk over Santa Clara a Velha

Night time
Night time

Looking up
Looking up

Star trail
Star trail

Church
Church

Eerie
Eerie

Attention
Attention

Too late for passengers
Too late for passengers

Wide angle lens for Sony A7 system – another option

In the search for a high quality wide angle lens for my Sony A7 system, a friend of mine recommended that I look at the Nikon AFS 20 f1.8 G lens. It is well known that so far, there are no options below 25mm (Zeiss Batis) for the system. The Sony 28 f2 lens accepts a converter that gives 21mm, and of course there is the Sony Zeiss 16-35 f4 zoom. None of these fit my requirements of a high quality, fast wide angle lens below 24mm, to shoot landscapes and night skies. So far, as illustrated in my previous post, I have been using a Nikkor AIS 24 f2.8 lens, which is a very good option. But I need something a bit wider and faster for some of my photography.

Thus, I started to investigate about the above mentioned Nikon lens, which is a recent introduction into the f1.8 Nikon lens line for FX (Nikon’s name for full frame 35mm format). Reading some reviews, it quickly became apparent that the lens is arguably Nikon’s best 20mm so far, which is saying a lot. Then the chance presented itself to use the lens for testing in one of my preferred areas, southwest Portugal coast; and with a new moon night sky, some star trail and Milky Way photography would provide a good testing ground.

Now, it needs to be said that using a Nikon G lens (no aperture ring) on a Sony A7 means that setting the aperture is done via a ring on the adapter (I have a Novoflex). At first, this a bit awkward, but after a while, there is no problem, as one can count stops easily by noting the changes in shutter speed, while using said ring. Another thing is, the manual focus ring is not as smooth as a true manual focus ring (no surprise there), the focus throw is not large (short turn of the ring between close focus and infinity), and the depth-of-field scale is, shall we say, not very useful (f16 marks only). Oh yes, and there are no hard stops at close focus and infinity.

Regardless of the above (normal) limitations, the lens delivers very good results. Below are some initial test shots: a general photo to illustrate the location where I set up the night sky shots (taken at about 9.30 pm), plus a star trail and Milky Way panorama. I had a bit of concern about being able to achieve precise infinity focus, but using magnification in the LCD, I was able to quickly and easily focus on a bright star.

I will keep testing the lens in similar situations, but so far, it is looking like a winner. In terms of handling and ergonomics, the lens is not heavy, it has the common 77mm filter diameter, and comes with a lens hood. If Zeiss ever comes out with a wide angle Loxia (say 21mm or there about), it needs to be pretty good optically to outperform this Nikon.

sardao__11_7_15_1_net
View of shooting location

 

Sardao_star_trail_11_7_15_net
Star trail of around 120 minutes total

 

milky_way_pano_sardao_11_7_15_net
Milky Way panorama – 8 photos

 

 

 

Startrails and night skies

This is a type of photography that I like very much to do. It is not easy, as it requires the photographer to be out in the field at ungodly hours, but… why not make the most of today’s camera technology to capture the beauty in our sky? The other difficulty for most people seems to be to actually find a dark enough place to see the stars and constellations!

But, if you happen to be in a such a place at or near new moon (when the sky is darker), then it is not difficult obtain good results. You will need a good tripod, a wide angle lens, and a cable release.

For star trails, I typically I set my camera in Manual mode, ISO 1600, aperture around f2 or f2.8 (depending on the lens), and shutter speed around 30 seconds. Then I just shoot in Continuous drive with the cable release in lock mode. In this way, most cameras will keep on shooting for as long as you wish, or for as long as the batteries last.

It also advantageous to shoot a couple of dark frames, before and after the sequence, so you can use them in programmes like Starstax (highly recommended) to process for dark frame/noise subtraction.

Another option is simply shoot isolated frames of the Milky Way, say ISO 1600 or 3200, f2.8 and around 20 – 30 seconds. Exposure times will depend on the focal length; the longer the focal length, the shorter the exposure time must be to avoid trailing in the stars.  It is also possible to shoot multiple images and later on align and process them in programmes like DeepSky Stacker; these will align the images and produce a single one, the advantage being that with several images, one can boost the S/N ratio. There are some excellent guides available on the WWW, one of my favourites is http://starcircleacademy.com/quick-tips/

Below are some examples I took in Southwest Portugal.

almograve_10_8_13_3_net almograve_31_8_13_net brejo_largo_5_10_13_1_net sardao_28_6_14_1_net sardao_28_6_2014_trail_net sta_clara_27_7_14_trail_net