Sky at Night

April 24_25 2011. Volcanic ash star trail :-) Iceland's Grimsvotn ash arrived in UK skies overnight. Did it affect the sky visually? Quite possibly, although density levels were low. Possibly more reddish/blueish than normal? Nicely captured the opposing curvature either side of the celestial equator. Oly E5, 7-14mm. 15s exposures @ F4 ISO 500 shot continuous through night (1000 exposures). Paint lit the foreground and even the growler got in the shot :-)

May 18_19 2011. Another clear night, although I had to wait till 2300hrs for the cloud to clear out. Not a bad result considering an almost full 'Milk' moon was directly behind. Caught a cracking meteor top (9 o clock). Camera was left out at 2300hrs all night and morning. I stacked approx 750 images for this shot, although it would have been more if I'd used my dew shield. Air temps dipped down to about 6C and touched the dewpoint temp, resulting in a sopping wet camera from approx 0300hrs on. Captured with Oly E5 & 7-14mm.