I've been exploring the coastal areas around Wellington, New Zealand to find interesting compositions to photograph under the night sky. Earlier this month I came across this rock pool which aligned perfectly with the rising Milky Way. Access to the pool over the rocks was difficult, but it was worth the effort to set this shot up.
Tags: Astrophotography Milky Way seascape long exposure landscape New Zealand Wellington
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Ever since I filmed the underwater time-lapse DownUnder back in 2017, I’ve been toying with the idea of bringing this into the astro world and photographing and time-lapsing both the underwater environment and night sky in one shot. Fortunately where I live in Wellington, New Zealand, is the perfect location for this with lots of tidal rock pools full of life under a dark night sky.
But it hasn’t been an easy shot to pull off - in fact this would have to be my most challenging astro photos to date. I’ve been attempting underwater asto shots since early 2020, but it’s taken me over a year to perfect a technique for shooting them. Each shot takes around 40 minutes to shoot, and you not only need a perfect night sky, but also have favorable locations, and timing with the tides can also be tricky. The other challenge is lighting your underwater scene, as any natural light diminishes considerably once it passes through water, and then there’s also the technique of focus stacking to get a sharp image from your foreground elements right through to the night sky, and I’m also shooting multiple shots each focus step for stacking to help with image quality and noise reduction.
So after many failed attempts, I’m happy to have finally pulled an under/over water astro shot that I’m finally happy with. The next challenge (which I’ve already attempted and failed many times) is an under/over water astro time-lapse.
In case you’re interested in the original DownUnder time-lapse I shot, you can find that here: youtu.be/lmYkjTXXwdE
Tags: Milky Way New Zealand Wellington. WellingtonNZ astrophotography nightscape theartofnight underwater photography Wellington
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There’s a good reason the Wairarapa in New Zealand is in the process of becoming the world largest Dark Sky Reserve. Pristine night skies and amazing varied landscape with very little light pollution. I shot this image at Cape Palliser in the early hours as the Milky Way set to the west.
This is a 24 image tracked pano, shot with the SYRP
Pan-Tilt in pano mode mounted on a Sky-Watcher
Star Adventurer Pro.
Tags: Cape Palliser Astrophotography Wairarapa New Zealand syrp stars starscape nightscape long exposure
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I shot this image at Pukerua Bay in Wellington, New Zealand. It's a location I've been wanting to get a shot of the Milky Way sitting horizontally in the sky and nicely composed with the coastal surroundings. Finally late July 2020 around 3am, I managed to get a shot that I was happy with!
Tags: Milky Way nightscape night photography long exposure Astrophotography New Zealand Pukerua Bay Wellington
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I shot this image a week before Christmas at Cape Palliser in New Zealand. It shows the Cape Palliser Lighthouse with the Orion constellation rising in the north east direction behind it. Cape Palliser is part of the proposed International Dark Sky Reserve in the Wairarapa region, and is an amazing place to view and photograph the night sky with little to no light pollution. Even with the lighthouse in frame, you can still capture amazing clarity and detail of the night sky, and although to the naked eye you won’t see all of the colour details that you do see in this photo, it’s still amazing standing under a night sky it such a dark environment.
The Orion constellation itself features various nebulas including M42 - the Orion Nebula. This nebula can be identified with the naked eye as something more than just a star, and with binoculars, you can see it’s clouds of nascent stars, luminous gas, and dust forming the nebula.
The photo itself was captured on a modified DSLR camera and 24mm lens mounted on a celestial tracker to prevent trailing of the stars with the long exposure. The tracker was then turned off when capturing the lighthouse and landscape. Multiple images with the same framing where captured and averaged out to reduce noise and capture additional details. The final result from that process on the landscape and the sky were then composited together to form one image.
Tags: Cape Palliser Lighthouse New Zealand Wellington nebula Wairarapa nightscape. astrophotography orion theartofnight
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