Another image from Friday morning' shoot on the cliffs near Arbroath, Angus, this time looking east at about 3am, and using a 35mm lens to fill more of the frame with the Deil's Head sea stack and the milky way. . There was some aurora behind my left shoulder, and also some air glow over the horizon, hence the reds and greens that we're seeing in this image. . Tracked sky (Move Shoot Move Nomad): 2 minutes, ISO 400, f/2.2. . Long exposure foreground (6 minutes, ISO 400, f/2.8). . #astrophoto #astrophotograpy #milkyway #scotland #angus #arbroath #nightscape #alphashooters #moveshootmove #visitangus

It's the start of milky way 'core' season, which means northern latitudes get to glimpse the brighter 'core' region of the milky way just before dawn. In Scotland, this means facing south east at around 4.30am. . This was taken at around 4am on Friday morning, when the east coast of Scotland was being treated to some exceptionally clear skies. I tracked the sky (f/2.8, ISO 400 and 3 minutes) and then doubled the length of the exposure for the foreground. I'm now using Move Shoot Move's Nomad star tracker, which seems to hold up really well in terms of tracking performance. . #scotland #astrophotography #moveshootmove #milkywaycore #milkyway #angus #nightscaper

So this is an image where I aimed to capture the faint section of the winter milky way arch as it rose over a photogenic rocky outcrop. You can make out the constellations of Cassiopeia and Perseus. High cloud was moving over the scene, creating a somewhat soft and dreamy nightscape sky. . #scotland #astrophotography #nightscape #moveshootmove

In landscape astrophotography there's no substitute for working under truly dark skies. It doesn't matter what gear you have or how good you are in post-processing, light pollution prevents the capture of the faint details in the night sky and plays havoc with editing. . This is an image taken on Lewis back in March of last year. Darkest skies in Europe. Shot at 12mm, so i was up close to the foreground boulders. Two exposures, blended in photoshop. Both foreground and sky exposure settings: 3 minutes, f/2.8 ISO 800. I used the lowest setting on my headlamp to illuminate the foreground just a touch. . This section of the milky way is especially faint, and barely perceptible to the naked eye, even under dark sky conditions. It straddles the constellations of Gemini, Auriga and Perseus. . For this particular image I've used a Photoshop plugin called StarXterminator. This tool allows you to edit the stars separately from the sky, which means you don't 'damage' the stars (lose colour, bloat them) when editing the sky. Thanks to @stevenrobinsonpictures for the suggestion as it's a game changer for me. . Thanks for looking. Hopefully some more night sky opportunities in the coming weeks and months. . #scotland #astrophotography #isleoflewis #outerhebrides #milkyway #landscapeastrophotography #starxterminator

Now that we're into February and we're starting to get slightly longer days, I'm looking to re-start on the roadtrips. . I'm looking forward to returning to Lewis again and hopefully getting clear skies. Perhaps in March, a year after this image was taken. The Outer Hebrides surely provide some of the darkest skies in the whole of Europe. . This image was taken at the ultra-wide side of life, at a focal length of 12mm, requiring me to be inches from ground and the near boulders. I took three separate images of the foreground, focussed at different points and then stacked them. The sky was a separate 5 minute tracked shot. . Working in the pitch black and trying to ensure you think through the shot and act as accurately as possible is always the fun challenge with astrophotography, albeit less so when it's freezing. Each time, something new is learned, either in the planning, in the execution, or behind the computer afterwards. . #lewis #isleoflewis #scotland #outerhebrides #astrophotography #milkywayphotography

I decided to test out the Move Shoot Move Nomad Star Tracker last night at one of my favourite locations and it performed exceptionally well. It is a very nice piece of kit and a step up in design from the original Move Shoot Move tracker, particularly regarding how well it connects with your accessories. . The image I’m showing here, though, is made up of a stack of images, taken at ISO 3200 f/2.2 and 13 seconds. . Whilst tracking does produce better images of the night sky (cleaner from a noise perspective and the long exposure allows you stop the lens down a touch to reduce coma, astigmatism and vignette), some subjects don’t support blending as a composite (such as this tree, where it is above the horizon and consists of fine spindly branches). . Still, whether tracked or stacked, you can still get nice nightscape images, even outside of milky way core season. All you need is a nice foreground subject, and dark, clear skies. . #scotland #astrophotography #nightscape #landscapeastrophotography #moveshootmove #moveshootmovenomad

Where else to be on a dark cold night at 1am in November? . #bowfiddlerock #scotland #moray #aurora #nightscape

It's been a quiet start to 2025 for me, although it actually started with a bit of a bang on 1st January when the night sky briefly came alive and allowed me to capture this scene on the Fife coast. The red banding is known as a Sub-Auroral Red Arc - it was visible to the south-east at about 8pm. . #scotland #astrophotography #scotlandsnightsky #nightscape #aurora #landscapephotography #fifecoastalpath #fife

This image was taken on New Year's Day, a couple of hours after sunset. I'd missed the best of the evening's aurora (around 5.45pm?), but i did manage to set up for this image, looking south east, at about 8pm. . Within the frame you can see the constellations of Gemini and Orion, with the milky way running in between them. You can also see Mars (the leftmost bright 'star'), and Canis Minor, the smaller of Orion's two dogs. . The red glow is a section of the SAR (subauroral red arc), which only became apparent to me when taking the image, as it was not visible to the naked eye, at least not mine. . In terms of technical details, this is a stitched 2x4 pano made with a 35mm lens. I used a star tracker and then blended the tracked sky and the untracked foreground together. The hardest part? Well aside from standing in the freezing cold for about an hour, I had to keep placing my hand over the front of the lens every six seconds when taking the foreground pano, to avoid light spill from Elie Ness lighthouse (which casts a rather ugly beam across the scene, almost slicing the tower in two). . #nightscape #scotland #elie #fife #aurora #milkyway #winternightsky

As we wrap up 2024, it's time to post my favourite image from the year. Taken at the end of November. And to think, I nearly drove past Kinlochard on my way back from Loch Chon, disappointed at the lack of mist, and just wanting to get home. . These were probably the best conditions I've experienced so far in my landscape photography journey (which is six years, almost to the day). Certainly for morning conditions inland. In fact it is 6 years to the day since I placed an order with Wex for a full frame DSLR camera and set of lenses, after being inspired to take up the hobby after binge watching YouTube vlogs over the Christmas break. . Hope you've had a relaxing Christmads break and best wishes for 2025 when it comes. . Martin . #visitscotland #hiddenscotland #outdoorphotomag #outandaboutscotland #elementsphotomag #scotland #thetrossachs

I've not been to this location for a wee while but I have it mind for a trip in the New Year. . In these dull days between Christmas and New Year, I've been looking back on past images, and found this one, which I'm sure I've not posted previously. . The shot was taken at about 5am, but I got there for 3am, judging by the timestamp of other photos that morning!! . If you didn't know that Tantallon Castle was lurking in the background, you'd have had the surprise of your life if you happened to be looking in that direction, when a break in the haar fog came. The break last only a few minutes though. And, like I say, it was 5am, so I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who witnessed it. . Anyhow thanks for looking and I hope everyone has had a decent rest. . #landscapephotography #scotland #tantalloncastle #seacliff

A dreamy scene to start the day, or rather, end the week. . Taken last month at Loch Ard - the loch that keeps on giving when you get conditions like this. . #scotland #landscapephotography

Probably one of my favourite local spots for a bit of astrophotography. . For this shot, I tried two of the three main techniques that landscape astrophotographers typically use: (a) a single image, reducing noise as best as possible in post, and (2) taking. alonger exposure using a star tracker to keep down the ISO. I could have also taken a stack of high ISO images and reduced noise the traditional way through stacking. And I could have stacked and tracked. . Tracking for this scene proved tricky, mostly because of the treeline intersecting the horizon on the right of the frame. It's also pretty much roadside, and a couple of attempts were ruined by passing car headlights directly into the lens. A tracked long-exposure also renders the star reflections in the water as streaks, so I would have had to have taken a short exposure for those at high ISO anyway, and blended them in again in post. . Although I did use the star tracker, in hindsight I also don't think that tracking would have added much for this section of the milky way (it's the Cygnus region rather than the core, and I'd need a longer focal length to pull out interesting detail here). And with the quantity of horizon light pollution at play, fainter details will be washed out anyway. . So on review, I've worked with a single frame with fairly conventional settings, just because for this particular scene, the result was better. As said, I did not go for a long exposure, even for the foreground, because of the passing traffic. . That's not to say that I don't prefer to use a star tracker for milky way scenes, especially during core season, because you do capture more of the faint detail than through stacking alone, and it means you can stop down a lens from it's maximum aperture and keep the ISO low: factors which help to preserve star colour and other finer details. . Anyhow, if you made it this far, well done! Hope you like the image. That's all that really counts! . #astrophotography #nightscapephotography #scotland

Although it's not 'milky way core season' right now, the winter night sky is a thing of beauty in much of NW Scotland, where the lack of light pollution really helps to capture the finer details, incluidng star colour. . So here we have the ruins of Duntulm Castle on the Isle of Skye, with the constellations of Orion and Gemini hanging overhead. . For those with a technical interest, I used my star tracker for this one, so that I could keep the ISO relatively low whilst taking long exposures. I'd have liked to stop down to f/2.8 and take the ISO a stop lower really, but it was too windy to consider extending the exposure of the sky to 4 minutes. . #isleofskye #astrophotography #landscapephotography #nightscape #scotland #alphashooters

A scene from last month where I was lucky to witness this beautiful scene unfolding in front of me at Loch Ard in The Trossachs. . Have a good weekend. . #scotland #landscapephotography #visitscotland

From a cold morning in Assynt back in March. . I watched and admired the wispy, freezing mist as it blew gracefully across the snowy peak of Cul Mor. The image was taken from the reedy shoreline of Loch Cul Drommannan. . #assynt #scotland #landscapephotography

Some dreamy morning light cast upon a misty Loch Ard in The Trossachs. . #scotland #landscapephotography #lochard #thetrossachs

A beautiful sunrise developing over Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland. For once I got the conditions I was hoping for at this location. . It's also an environmental portrait because @scottjessimanphotography is also in the frame - can you spot him? . #bamburghcastle #bamburgh #northumberland #castles_oftheworld #landscapephotography

Another trip to the Isle of Skye coming up. . Loved this little scene last time I was there in Winter, on a day exploring the lesser visited Sleat peninsula. Taken as the sun was setting, giving the cold day a hint of warmth. . #skye #isleofskye #scotland #landscapephotography

This was taken last month on my little adventure to the north east of Scotland. It feels like we're due another big showing of the aurora. . #northernlights #aurora #findhorn #scotland

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