Starry starry night

On the night before I returned to Dublin – marking the end of my Christmas break – I paid a visit to my parents and as I stepped out of the car I noticed that the sky was remarkably clear, and with very little light pollution in this part of the world, it seemed as if it was possible to see every star in the sky.

I went inside the house with the plan of returning outside later to take a photograph, but by the time I did so the near-full moon had risen, and things weren’t quite so clear.  Still, now that I was outside I thought I’d persist and so I set up my tripod on the frosty grass, mounted my D300 on top and took eight or nine photos using both my 17-50mm lens at 17mm and my trusty fisheye.

This isn’t the first time that I’ve pointed my fisheye towards space, and I’m impressed with the level of detail the camera was able to pick up over a 30 second exposure on this occasion.   The last time I was on the edges of Dublin city, and so the light pollution was unavoidable.  On this occasion what light pollution there was came from the moon, and with the wisps of cloud that had formed in the sky, adds a bit of atmosphere to the shot.

The stars aren’t sharp points of light due to the rotation of the earth over the 30 seconds, but some constellations are still visible, most notably Orion, with the distinctive Orion’s Belt – three bright stars in a row – which you can see at the right hand side of the image.

I chose to leave the horizon (distorted as it is) in the frame for two reasons – it adds a base to the image compositionally, and even though it is distorted I like both the silhouette of the trees against the night sky and how the moon is lighting the frosted grass.