Astro at Ynys Llanddwyn
A landscape photography blog by Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire based landscape photographer Rob Thorley Photography.
Marooned again! Tonight it was back to the tidal island of Ynys Llanddwyn on Ynys Mon to attempt some more astrophotography.
Mid-September is quite late in the season for photographing the Milky Way, but given how 2020 had panned out it was still worth a trip out, even if it was just for the practice.
I’d had the trip planned for around a week. The long range weather forecast was perfect, so was the tide, and there was no moon. I checked the forecast each day, and it remained spot on until the Friday morning. On the day of the trip I checked the forecast and it had gone from perfect to what looked like an 80% chance of total cloud after sunset. After some debate with my brother-in-law we decided we’d still make the effort, and hope that we got lucky.
We arrived in plenty of time, and headed onto Llanddwyn to get set up. Since my first, last, and only visit to shoot the Milky Way I’d had a composition in mind. I planned to shoot this composition for a few hours to be able to blend the images, and to also hopefully get a time lapse. Tonight I discovered there are some things in life that you just can’t cater for. We got to where we were going to shoot from, and to my surprise, and dismay there was a girl fast asleep on the ground, right where I wanted to plant my tripod. Twelve months in the planning but you can’t really plan for that one!
A deep breath, and a few f-bombs later I moved on, and found another composition. I setup, and started to shoot 20 second exposures as we went into blue hour, and beyond. Due to how late we were in the season as soon as it went dark the Milky Way was already up in the sky. For once the weather gods smiled on us. It got a little breezy but the clouds held at bay, and we had pretty clear skies until around midnight.
There were a bumps on the way, but the night itself was another cracking experience, and I was very pleased with the images I got of the Milky Way. I also managed to get my first time lapse of the Milky Way, which was a bonus.
I’m already looking to return, but next time it’ll definitely be earlier in the season to hopefully get more of the galactic core visible, and hopefully with a new, and wider lens.
You can view more images from Ynys Llanddwyn, and my gallery of other Ynys Mon locations.
