Scozmo's Photery

In my memory this year hasn’t been great so far for clear night skies, sunsets or sunrise, not to say there haven’t been any, of course there has it just feels like we had a lot of cloudy or rainy nights and mornings.

That said, I grab the opportunities when I can 🙂

Not a great shot above but I did manage to grab the Aurora, I think I may have changed a light setting on the camera, that orangey colour doesn’t look natural.

When I’ve got a set of shots for a time-lapse clip, I usually go through them to check for “objects”, anything that catches my eye as unusual, bearing in mind there are a lot of satellites up there now, I try to negate those and only pick objects that look different, sometimes, it’s just a satellite.

A bright streak heading for the hill, the length of the streak can tell me it was a meteorite or similar given the time that the shutter was open. Longer streak means moving faster than the average satellite, to me anyway.

A lot of these images I enhance to make the object or activity clearer but I try to stop them looking too unnatural.

I also like a good panorama to show the extent of the surroundings or the sky itself.

That was 18:19 in the evening, I love the Winter nights, dark early 🙂

As I’ve said before, I tend to wander out and in all evening, just checking.

In that one the lights of a vehicle? caught my eye, shining up into the sky from a road beyond those hills. This was just before 6 in the evening and the sunset glow can still be seen on the left.

The glow from the nearby town makes for interesting effects on the clouds and Venus is shining through those clouds with a couple of satellites flying by.

The lights of the city light up the sky to the SE, I rarely take shots that way but …

If you tap or click on these images, you’ll see a fuller view, turn your screen, if you can to get the full width.And lastly, from the same night, that light shining into the sky.

It feels like there are more lights out there every night which is kind of a shame but, that’s life now.

A low fog lay over the valley and the house lights lit the underside, an aircraft passing through made for interest in the sky full of stars.

We had a reasonably clear sky on the 25th but no real activity, if I get a set of time-lapse shots with nothing much going on, I’ll scan through them and decide whether to make the video clip or just use a couple then delete the rest.

The Plough can be seen there tilting upwards, it goes through an almost full cycle above us. but often dawn light prevents me seeing the full cycle.

I took a few shots out towards the S. West as Venus was showing clearly.

On the 28th we had a beautiful bright Aurora, which I seem to have lost or deleted but, I did try something new.

This is a set of time-lapse images all layered on top of each other and them blended to shot the path of the stars as the Earth spins, it also shows the extent of the Aurora that night during the time-lapse. You also see the trails left by moving vehicles and satellites. These are all taken through a window, hence the haze caused by the house lights.

I was quite pleased for my first attempt 🙂

The 29th saw a clear sky night but no activity as such, apart from a few streakers 🙂

Because it was clear night, I also tried another star trail stack.

I aim to try for a full circle with the camera focussed on the Pole star, best get to it before it gets too light!

The 29th was another good night for the planets

January 31st saw the new Moon, at least the first time I’d spotted it along with Venus.

So that was January, I know I’ve deleted or lost some shots but I think there’s enough here right?

As ever, drop me a comment any time, it’s ways nice to hear from viewers.

alyth skies