Southwest Portugal, more stars

[Paulo Bizarro]

Hello,
I was lucky to be in this place during new moon last Friday night, so it was as dark as it gets there. I tried a startrail shot towards the north (with light pollution from the village of Milfontes), and then a Milky Way shot to the south, including the light house.
This second shot was the trickiest; I have tried different exposure times. The challenge was to block the rotating light hitting the lens, which I did by periodically covering the lens every 5 seconds or so, with a cardboard. But then the exposure could not be very long, to avoid too much trail in the stars… Overall, this shot took 63 seconds, with an effective exposure of around 25 seconds; with 63 seconds, stars do move…
Anyway, it is always amazing and nice just to be there.
Regards.

[francois]

I like both but the second one, with the Milky Way, is my favorite… The deep blue sky and the yellow lights (ie pollution) are complementary. You effort for the second one paid off…
Bravo.

[luxborealis]

Both are wonderful photographs, Paulo. Nicely done!

[sdwilsonsct]

I need to try this!

I wonder how the lighthouse would look if it was a bit closer. The beams of light are interesting.

[Paulo Bizarro]

Thanks everyone.

Scott, this is actually not that difficult, all it requires is strong will to loose some hours of sleep:)

I know the area very well, been going there for more than 20 years; your suggestion of going closer to the lighthouse is interesting, I will need to try that. The only thing is that perhaps the sky would be washed out because I would be closer to the light source, which is really strong. As it is, I was perhaps 500m away from the lighthouse on a straight line, and I had to cover the lens with a cardboard at regular intervals to avoid direct hits from the light.