Everyone it seems, is looking up. Not at their ceilings, but instead at the night skies. Here in the UK the media has picked up on the so called ‘Brian Cox effect’, and the huge impact BBC Stargazing Live has had on the population. It’s certainly done for astronomy what the Spring/AutumnWatch productions have done for Natural History; Getting people involved and engaged, even to a point where Amazon’s telescope sales have rocketed (sic).
It’s an effect that I also see every time I log on to Twitter. More users are being switched on to the stars thanks to the dedication of people like VirtualAstro (Worthy of a follow!) who is just one example of stargazers sharing news, expertise and remarkably cool content.
As if all this wasn’t enough, along comes the Aurora Borealis. Suddenly everyone is talking about it, and many people out there South of Shetland and North of Newcastle actually got to see it. My own anticipation and excitement from following the Aurora alerts on Twitter (Yep, plenty of resources for that too!) was dampened by yet another weekend of night time cloud cover here on Islay.
Starry Skies over the Finlaggan Ruins, Isle of Islay
Cloudy nights have dogged us here for most of the winter, thus keeping me indoors and the camera quiet. Many of you will already know that it was the Islay nightscapes that accelerated my photography into the public domain. From being an unknown hobbyist in early 2010, I set about to bring viewers a new night time perspective of Islay locations; an idea that gained me momentum in the early days of James Deane Photography. The resulting images are now familiar to all, including nightscapes at Bunnahabhain, Carraig Fhada, Bridgend, The Oa and of course the image that many associate most with me; Kildalton Cross; The latter attracting the most page visits of any image on my website. These Islay night sky photographs have proven their worth, not just through print sales, but from the positive feedback I received, both locally from Ileachs, and from site visitors globally. “Keep ‘em coming” I was told.
The long exposure at Finlaggan amplifies the faint glow from Ballygrant
And that was my intention; to continue the night theme for the winter of 2011/12. So after all the lousy conditions, I seized a 30 minute window of opportunity last night and drove down to Finlaggan, the ancient seat of the Lord of the Isles. I just managed a few shots of the starry sky with the ruins before cloud moved in from the west. So a little hampered maybe, but satisfying to just be out there again, applying the same formula to new scenes. As usual I’ve posted a few more pics from last night over on my Facebook page.
Thanks Flora!
Thank you for all these awesome photos from Finlaggan. I just discovered them through a Facebook friend and they just took my breath away!! Brilliant – what else can I say??
Thanks Justin… Mark posted a link to your new blog, and I’m definitely switched on to your posts. Wish my writing was up to your standard!
Nice stars! Really lovely shots, James…