New Year

Well that's another year past. A year that saw the EU referendum divide the country in a very tight vote and a year that saw the Russian's install the next American president (apparently). Financial uncertainty now surrounds us and as we enter 2017 I can see little to dispel that same uncertainty. Fortunately my wife and I have paid off our mortgage and bought most of the equipment that I need for my photography over recent years so if things do take a turn for the worst I won't have to mull around miserably over not having what I need.

As a landscape photographer I don't feel the need to carry a huge bag of lenses with me. Trekking up and down hills, across muddy fields and along miles of coastal paths is hard enough if I were empty handed, let alone if I were carrying half of Jessops with me! So I try to always take equipment that I know I will use and leave the might do and maybe stuff back at base.

My Nikkor 24-70 is a heavy and top quality Pro standard lens that does almost everything that I need a lens to do. For anything further away I have a Sigma 150-400 zoom lens that amazes me with it's image quality albeit an older lens now.

It was with my Sigma lens that back last month that I shot the December Supermoon. It was a cool but not cold clear night and it was one of those times that I got set up efficiently and everything turned out well. All in all I took 12 shots, all at different exposures so I had plenty to work with but it was as I took those shots that I found myself thinking back to September 1992....... Foxearth!

September 1992, a friend of mine (Mick) owned a telescope - just a beginners telescope but very useful nonetheless. We headed out to Foxearth, a small villge not too far away from where we live and pulled up in a lay-by at the edge of a ploughed field (dodgy stuff I know!). We set up the telescope and after some time our eyes became accustomed to the dark and the sky was just a mass of stars.

A short while later Mick said he's located Saturn in the eyepiece and although it took a bit of staring at, the rings soon came into view and the feeling I got was pure wonderment at seeing not a picture, but another planet with the naked eye.

After processing the photos that I'd taken of the moon last month I got round to thinking about Astrophotography and the type of photos I could get with a telescope and after much research I decided to purchase a Sky-watcher 200P with a direct camera fitting and an EQ5 Mount. It'll stay in the box for awhile until the suitable amendments have been made to the garden, but come this summer, much of my photography this year may well be done at home.

Michael Stretton