Milky Way Derwentwater
On September 7th 2021 I ran my only group astro workshop of 2021, and it turned out to be a very memorable event. The restrictions caused by the pandemic have put pretty much everything on hold for this year, so I am hoping that in 2022 we can start to get back out again.
The image above shows my favourite shot of the night, with the central region of the Milky Way drifting across the fell tops. September is the last month of the year when we get a decent view of this part of our galaxy in the UK, although it is still possible to see most of Sagittarius into October. This was captured at 54º latitude in Cumbria. Those that live on the south coast will get to see a bit more because they can see an extra 3º or so view of the southern celestial hemisphere, where Sagittarius lies.
I was a little disappointed by the glow coming from down the lake, just behind the island. This appears to be the Lodore Hotel, which I'm not sure if it had any special function going on the night, but you can clearly see that there is a definite glow coming from the horizon which affects the night sky above. This is a bit of a bugbear with me, as we are in the Lake District whic has very dark night skies, yet businesses like hotels give off far too much light pollution for my liking. The night skies here should be better protected.
Below I show a few more images from the workshop, which was attended by three clients who had travelled from as afar as Bolton Lancs & Blyth Northumberland.
In the image below I have pointed out what can be seen of the constellation of Sagittarius, or more to the point, the Teapot asterism. Sagittarius is the pointer to the brightest & most structured part of our galaxy. In effect, we are looking towards the centre when we can see Sagittarius. The Teapot of Sagittarius is the most recognisable group of stars in the constellation, but it never rises very high when viewed from the UK. Here in Keswick Cumbria, where I took the image, it only rises to a max of 10º above the southern meridian, and this is best seen in August from Cumbria. Any earlier and this part of the UK the night sky will be bathed in twilight, making the Milky Way a little challenging to make out.
Below I turned the camera around so I could capture more of the Milky Way, including a nice reflection in the very calm lake.
In the image below I've drawn in where the lower half of the Summer Triangle is. If you look straight up in summer, and into early autumn you can easily see this large asterism overhead.
So unfortunately we don't get the best view of the galaxy core from the UK, but we do get a nice view of another region of the Milky Way which is very rich in stars & nebula. The Scutum Star Cloud whcih I have circled in the photograph is a quite amazing sight when seen in such a dark sky as here in the Lake District. I describe it as looking a bit like a puffy cloud, or cotton wool bud in the sky. It certainly stands out on it's own due to it's brightness. Just imagine how many stars there are packed into this small area of sky.
Below is a cropped, single image showing the Sagitarius region. See the next image where I have stacked several frames to reduce the noise.
The image below is the same as the one above, but I have ran it through a stacking program for my iMac called Starry Landscape Stacker. It looks quite a bit less noisy than the single image above, and it is a great way to process high ISO images that would otherwise look grainy.
I hope to be able to do some more workshops like this one through the winter although they are very weather dependant. I will also use different locations depending on the time of year, and for different subjects.
I'll leave you with a shot I got at 6am from Crow Park Keswick. What an amazing sight to see first thing in the morning.
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