Milky-Way at Portland Bill Lighthouse (Emil Andronic)

Milky-Way at Portland Bill Lighthouse

Night-time at Portland Bill Lighthouse

Track/Stack/Blend/Composite

Knowing that this weekend was going to be a Bank Holiday weekend in the UK, with 3 days off and no moon about to mess things up, I really hoped to have at least one clear night to go out and try my luck at some Milky-Way shots before the UK will be losing the astronomical darkness.

The forecast looked good for Friday night and because the last time I went to Portland Bill I didn't manage to get home with anything good, I thought of giving it another go.
Even though it was a 4 hour drive from my house, I'm over the moon I went there because I haven't seen the sky so nice and clean in a very, very long time, it was just perfect.

When we got there, I started scouting for a location for a good composition and I remembered that I haven't seen many photos of the lighthouse shot front on from the path so I gave it a go to see if it would make a good foreground.

Obviously, shooting 120sec for the tracked Milky-Way from that location would make the photos completely white because of how bright the lights are over there, so the Milky-Way was shot a bit further away and blended into position in post processing.

I took quite a few photos and this one is the first that I want to show you because I love it to bits.

As always, I used my Astro-modified Canon 6d that never disappoints, but this time I used it with the Sigma Art 24-35mm f2 lens at 24mm f2.8.

The foreground is a single image, 5sec, ISO 1600, 24mm f2.8 and the sky is a stack of 13 x 120sec, ISO 1600, 24mm f2.8 tracked images using my iOptron Sky-Guider Pro star tacker.

The editing was done in Lightroom Classic, Pixinsight and Photoshop and the blending with the final touches in Photoshop.

Incredible night with incredible skies.
I only wish every clear night would be like that.

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