Highway To Heaven

Well, not actually, but the A4059 that runs from Merthyr to Hirwaun, in The Brecon Beacons. It was taken about 2am and besides the amazing stars we had the road to ourselves for about 25 mins before we had to grab our tripods and move!

During the day,  my friend Darren who has a sideline job as a professional photographer asked me to go with him to The Brecon Beacons National Park to do some astro-photography. I didn't need asking twice.

For those of you who don't know, in 2013 the Brecon Beacons National Park was awarded International Dark Sky Reserve status in recognition of its ongoing commitment to preserve and enhance sky darkness across the Park. The sky here is phenomenally dark; light from some of the furthest objects in our own galaxy, and even galaxies beyond can be seen clearly with the naked eye such is the lack of artificial light pollution in the area.

It's arguably the best places in the UK for star gazing and it's only 35 minutes away from me. As the night went on the temperature dropped to 6c but we were dressed for the weather and time went so quickly as the star spectacle is just so awesome.

The blip photo is a long exposure where I have used lighting to enhance the road. I took about 80 pics during the night. There were a dozen that I really liked (some I did were light writing) but I've chosen the blip pic as it has a strong impact and you can make out the Milky Way if you look close.

We used a phone app called 'Star Walk' (version 1 is best) which gives live time info of the stars positions using GPS. Highly recommended. The next best date for seeing the Milky Way at it's best is May 6.

You may shudder at the idea of being on the Beacons in the early hours but, I will definitely be doing it again. The amount of stars you could see was off the charts and just awesome. It's hard to do them justice with photography.

I've known Darren for a couple of years. He saw some of my photographs on a site and contacted me. Turned out that not only did he live in the same village he is a serving Police Officer (my former job) and we share a lot of common interests. A nice coincidence and another friend I've made through the wonderful hobby of photography!

NB: Just been contacted by Darren who has spoken to an 'expert' on the subject and it turns out we have both taken pictures of The Aurora. It was visible in the UK during the night.  We were baffled why we were getting red/purples/  on some images - now we know! This other chap captured it about 10.50pm last night as well.  Who needs Iceland for the Northern Lights?  :)