Shooting for the Stars

I've been interested in taking photographs of the night sky for a few years now, but other than taking a few shots of the sun and moon on various eclipses and at other notable times, I've never got my act together to shoot for the stars. Having seen a number of Milky Way photographs coming out of North Wales this year, I decided it was time to try to get some myself.

So after I'd spent the day in Snowdonia with Pete Lawless, I decided that I'd stay on and try for some Milky Way shots myself.  The original idea was to meet up with the two most prolific night sky photographers in the area, but somehow the plans went awry and I was contacted on what proved to be an excellent night for photography.

So I was left to my own devices and I ended up revisiting a place that Pete and I had been to during the day to do some landscape shots - Cwm Idwal. I decided on this as I had already familiarised myself with the landscape and footpaths and this was going to be very useful as I wandered around in the dark.

I'd prepared reasonably well by packing a couple of torches and warm clothing and I'd recently bought the PhotoPills app for my phone which helped to show where the Milky Way would be in the sky and at what time. I'd also be practicing taking photos in the back garden to get familiar with my camera controls when you can't really see your hands in front of your face.

Surprisingly though, it wasn't quite as dark as I'd expected because there were some lights in the nearby cottages and the odd car passed by on the A5 road below me. But what really opened my eyes as I stood on the bridge looking over the Afon Ogwen Falls, was the number of people who were wandering about in the dark at 11pm at night!  There were headlamps camping on top of Pen yr Ole Wen and Tryfan, lights coming down the steep slopes of both mountains and people going up to Cwm Idwal to wild camp overnight.

So at the end of a very long day, I went back to the car hoping to find a pub on the way home as I was starving and desperate for a pint of lager shandy. But I'd left it too late and all I could find was a Tesco Express which I just managed to get in before closing.  I bought two drinks and a sandwich and drove home hoping that some of the shots would be half decent. A great day out and it was quite an experience, believe me.