On the trail of stars up the Folly

 

Late on Sunday evening, I was standing near the Folly in Pontypool staring up into the heavens. There was a gentle wind caressing my cheek - my face and fingers were just about the only parts of my body not wrapped in fleece or neoprene, as being up there in the dark can be very cold at the best of times.

It was very quiet. The hustle and bustle of the day had ended. I could hear a distant police siren and the hum of traffic on the A4042 in Manhilad, far below me, up there on the hill, it was peaceful.

Occasionally, I would hear the bleat of a lamb calling to its mother and the hoot of a Tawny Owl; it made it all so atmospheric. I love the darkness and the freshness of the night air. It's both thrilling and calming at the same time.

Whilst most people were getting ready for bed, I was instead thinking about the photograph I wanted to take. I was planning to do something new. This year, I have really got bitten by the Astrophotography bug and want to experiment more so I can learn new techniques whilst also making the most of my latest technology investment - the Dwarf 3 Digital Telescope.

The Dwarf has a feature that can take Startrail photographs. This involves taking many images and then stacking them. As the stars move in the sky, they eventually form streaks across the image. The digital telescope takes care of most of this itself, so that's the easy part. The hard part is framing the subject - in this situation, the iconic stone sentinel - the Folly, and then getting the image aligned with the North Star - Polaris. I wanted the final image to show the star trails forming concentric circles, as this can create a vortex effect above the Folly.

I had the picture in my mind's eye that I wanted, but things did not go straight forward. Despite the Dwarf having a wide-angle lens, I could not get the Folly and Polaris in the same frame, despite walking further away down the south side of the hill. I eventually ended up stopping at the hedge line and decided to set up camp as far away from the tower as I could.

Once I had set up the frame as I wanted, I started taking images. Now it was just a case of being patient and waiting for things to take their course. As the digital telescope stacks images, it shows you a live view, and it's akin to watching a Polaroid photograph develop in front of your eyes.

I occupied myself by staring up at the sky and relaxing. Alone in the dark with no one other than myself for company, I find it very relaxing, and it kind of unclutters my busy mind.

After about thirty minutes, I had a pretty good idea about what kind of quality image I was going to get - it was ok but not the best. The scene was in a landscape perspective, and unfortunately, Polaris was way out of the frame.

I decided to stop the stacking and try again, but this time mounting the Dwarf on its side on the tripod so that I would have a long portrait framed picture. I thought this would work better and get more startrails closer to the vortex core, where Polaris was situated high above the Folly.

The next forty-five minutes passed quickly as I tried to track the constellations and pick out the planet Jupiter.

I thought about what an awe-inspiring week it had been . I had watched the NASA Artemis Space Rocket take off on Wednesday, which was very exciting, and as a nod to the astronauts on the way to the moon, I had taken a few pictures of the almost full moon from my garden.

It was now getting late, and the cold of the night was starting to get to me and make me shiver. The second run of stacked images was much better, and I had captured a new perspective on a photo of the Folly.

I noticed that there was a bright orange streak in the image that could be a Meteor ( Shooting Star) or possibly an iridium flare caused by a certain type of old Satellite.

I learned a lot from my stargazing up the Folly and look forward to my next liaison in the night with the stone sentinel.