Night Photography | Stars From The Front And Rear Of My Home And The Perils Of Living With Suburban Light Pollution.

I am fully aware that the length of this post’s title is ridiculous, but, it does describe this post perfectly.

As I mentioned at the end of the Dover based photography blog post [as always, the link is below] I remembered on the trip home that the following night was meant to be a Supermoon. In other words the Moon was going to be closer and appear brighter that it would do in 18 years. The following night I headed to my back garden to try and capture some photographs of this rare astronomical event. But doing this, was not without difficulty.

General Photography | Dover
Date Posted: Friday 25^th March 2011

That night there was a few aspects that were in my way in respect to getting a decent shot of the night sky albeit the Moon. First of which is the fact that I lack any lenses that go beyond 50mm. Which, as you may or may not know, a 50mm lens does not really have the desired focal length for taking photographs of anything that can be considered an astrological object.

The second, which to be honest can be ranked as joint first for obstacles to night photography is that I live very close to Bluewater Shopping Centre, which, even late at night when all the shops are closed produces an inordinate amount of light pollution. I have grown up with a night sky with a particular hue of bright purple. It’s quite strange.

As well as the short focal lengths and constant purple haze that I have come to call a night sky another factor that plays it’s part in stopping me from taking brilliant astronomical photographs for the ages is location. This is much the same as the reasoning behind light pollution but with an added extra and that is that I have a bunch of trees growing across the way from my house and to the back of my garden blocking any shot of the Moon should it be too low. And that I have a long line of street lights to the front of the house complimenting the purple haze with orange-yellow undertones. Both of which, more often than not, like to join forces and play havoc with any exposure of considerable length that I try to take in the area.

But I have been lucky once or twice. A few years ago I was indoors sitting in my bedroom using my laptop, I think I was talking to a friend online, when I realised that the lights went off. I thought nothing of it at first but this darkness had a feel of something grander to it that just the all the bulbs being blown in my house. A total and complete darkness that enveloped my bedroom save my laptop screen. I looked outside to see what was going on. And that was when I realised that this sudden darkness wasn’t just affecting my house but every house on my road and not only that but all the street lights as well. It would be a lie to say that I had been waiting for this black out, but I jumped to the opportunity [literally, nearly breaking my tripod as I didn't know that it was by my foot as it was completely dark].  The streets were dark and somewhat eerie. The only sounds carrying through the cold night air was that of distant car alarms and barking dogs. It seemed to stop all the traffic as well with only a couple of cars going through what is usually a very busy stretch of road. I placed my SLR in a flowerpot and pointed it up towards the sky and in the process I managed to achieve my favourite night time shots that I ever taken around my home.And don’t worry I will include those photographs in this post.

A few years later I came across a handy trick to photographing the Moon. Which I wish to share with anybody having difficulty in photography our sunlit satellite. Wait till near dusk and with a long lens [preferably of a length around 300mm or more] point it at the Moon and take down the camera by about 2 exposure values [-2EV].

Don’t fret by the way, we will get to the photographs soon enough, that is if you are still reading this and haven’t already scrolled down to the pretty pictures already. The reason for the long post title and the lengthy preposition is that I wanted to explain that I have tried on many occasions to photograph the night sky. And although I didn’t produce a photograph of the Supermoon that I was happy with I was going to show a selection of my Astro-photography. As this is sort of a compilation post there won’t be a video to gowith this one. These photographs were either taken with a Canon EOS 350D or a Canon EOS 50D with a variety of lenses. Please enjoy.