Southern view from South West France.

[+Bino-viewer]

Hi everyone.

Not posted one of my 'iffy' images for a while so here goes.......

 

I've had a couple of holidays recently.

Firstly to Fuerteventura, Canary Islands. 

I was really disappointed here by the light pollution, and abandoned any plans of astrophotography. 

Very windy as well, but i had a good view of Sagittarius & Scorpius and it was nice to see Mars , Saturn and Antares at a nice altitude. This was early August.

 

Fast forward a month.

I've just had a very nice 5 day visit to my sister-in-laws in southern France.

They've bought a beautiful big house a mile or so outside Prayssac (nearest big town is Cahors) in the Midi-Pyrennes, with plans to open it up as a b & b in 2017.

I took my 10x30 Canons with me in the hope of doing a bit with them, and also my Canon 6D / 16-35 F4 widefield.

 

I was thrilled by what i saw when it got dark.

Beautiful clear skys (mostly) with daytime temperatures in the mid 30's.

20* C + at night so i was able to observe / image in shorts, a vest top and flip flops.

Mag 6 skys. Little in the way of LP. For example : i could make out ALL the stars in Ursa Minor quite easily.

The Milky way was spectacular, from Cassiopeia, all the way down to the southern horizon.

I actually found it difficult at times to get my bearings due to the overwhelming amount of stars.....

 

I will certainly be returning with a small scope / tripod in the future 

No i don't consider myself a serious imager. I enjoy photography, and would like to improve....but the main thing for me is to have fun while doing it.

 

Here's a single 30 second image with the 6D, using my widefield 16-35mm F4. I've been really pleased so far with the performance of this lens.

30 sec, F4.5 iso 3200. 

The lens was wide open at 16mm. I had no mount or tripod, just an old 'Gorilla pod' with the camera on it at ground level.

I found i could get away (mostly) with hardly any star trailing at 16mm. Not so good though at 35mm.

 

One downside though, that i can't do much about.........

Aircraft. This part of France seems to be a main route with planes going north / south etc

Almost every single image i took (and i took quite a few) had a plane on it.

I deleted lots while i was on-site and played a waiting game but they were the ones i could see.

I can't see planes flying at 35000 ft in the dark very well. But my camera can....

 

I hope you like the image. Its not up there 'with the like of Sheila and Stuart of course, but for me, i'm pretty happy with it.

Too late for me to see my favourite constellation Scorpius which was setting. (I think you can just make out Saturn & Mars above the trees)

But its a thrill for me to be able to image the 'teapot' as i like to call Sagittarius.

I'm looking forward to 2017 already......

 

Edited September 6, 2016 by Bino-viewer
Typo's etc

[Tweedledee]

Lovely pic Rob. 

 

Lots of stuff in there, Scutum star cloud, M24, M8, the Coathanger and various star clusters. Love it. 

[+Bino-viewer]

Thanks Pete.

The glow you can see to the south is from Prayssac, a small town about 2 km away.

 

Yes, i thought it was M8 when i was using the binocs. Quite a tricky one from the UK i believe.

 

[+Bino-viewer]

The above image was actually taken slightly away from the property which gave me a better view south.

Theres a few trees in the garden.

Here's a test image i took on the first evening with the camera pointing straight up towards the zenith, between Cassiopeia and the 'Summer Triangle'.

The glow you can see is from an interior light in the house. Theres a bit of cloud, but not enough to spoil the image.

Same lens, this time wide open at F4, 16mm, 30sec, iso 3200

 

Edited September 6, 2016 by Bino-viewer

[Doc]

My father used to live in the Limousin area of France, and when I visited a few times that was really dark as well, in fact so dark you could see more then a few inches.

 

Nice pics Rob sounds like you loved the place.

[BAZ]

A gorgeous bit of sky there Rob, there is loads going off. Well worth clicking the image and then making it bigger on the flickr page and having a mooch round.