Fire In The Sky - Houghton le Spring

Hello once again!

Back for a brief update here on Blogger. With a folder full of backdated images to get through, I tick another batch off as I bring you my latest writings on all things photography. December 2108 and one of those 'Shall I' or 'Shall I not' pop out for an hour with the camera. It was a Saturday afternoon and the sky was brewing up quite nicely as sunset approached. I lost count of how many times I looked out my back window to check the sky. Each time I saw it I was nudging ever closer to grabbing my camera and heading out. With sunset looming I knew I wouldn't have time to go too far, so it would be another one of those very local trips like ... yeah, that ... the Copt Hill Barrow. Why not, it's in my own back yard and it's always a nice thing to pull in great shots from this location. I've lost count on the number of visits I've made, but hey ... two visits are never the same, let alone fifty!

And so it was to be ... the five minute car ride up the hill and across the field to those Seven Sisters. I got there around 30 minutes before sunset and the early indication was that this was gonna be a good one. Already the sky was taking on a colourful canopy - a one that would play an ideal role as backdrop for the Seven Sisters. Another photographer turned up, setting his gear close by. We'd met before. It was Ken Foulds, who lives across the way in Belmont, on the outskirts of Durham. Strangely enough, our first meeting was at this very same spot. Great minds think alike. I grabbed a couple of shots of Ken as I photographed his own scene, both of which are shown here. As the sky started to kick off I dotted around the Copt Hill, capturing the scene from various angles. The sky was definitely living up to its earlier billing, as the colour presented itself and seemed to linger for an age. This wasn't going to be a brief affair.

I was running with the Canon 5D3 for this outing, couple with a 16-35L lens and nothing else. No filters or remote, just the basics. I even   left my mitts in the car, which wasn't exactly the smartest move I made, as it was bloody freezing. Then again, we were into late December, so not to complain eh. I fired off around twenty frames in total, which definitely had a keeper or two amongst them, so I was looking forward to getting them onto my laptop to have a better look. So without further ado I said goodbye to Mr Foulds and headed off back to the car. By this time it would have been around 4.30pm. I had parked up in the Copt Hill Inn car park, which is a short walk from the burial ground that is Seven Sisters. I noticed there was still some lovely colour in the sky, which was odd, as the sun had actually set an hour ago. By this time there's usually no trace of red in the sky, but on this occasion there was still plenty to see. It was almost apocalyptic. Amazing to watch as it took on an almost surreal sight for sore eyes. Looking back now, I can safely say that the last photo I took (shown here, of the Copt Hill Inn) was by far my favourite one of the lot. Now, that was not part of the plan when I arrived, but sometimes those little surprises make the experience a whole lot sweeter. And so it was ...

Until the next time, be good

A.C

Under The Radar - High Moorsley

Well, well, well ... two back to back blog entries in as many days. What on earth has come over me? Aye well, can't be complaining, eh. These things are indeed a rarity, if recent times are anything to go by. The truth is, I have a backlog of images that have been queued up for a while, ready for the blog treatment, so it would seem wasteful not to share the story behind those images. So here I am again, bringing you the latest spin on my photography exploits, with yet another night time outing under my belt and ready to share. Again, I was accompanied by Mr Spider, my brother and fellow astro photographer. We were rapidly approaching the end of the calendar year and seeing as I was on a two week break from work, now was as good a time than any to get back out with the camera, regardless of the cold weather. The plan on this occasion was to visit High Moorsley Weather Radar, on a trig point on the outskirts of County Durham - a 15 minute drive from my home in Houghton le Spring, Tyne & Wear. Star trails was the plan once again and this place is ideal for it. The weather radar sat high on metal framework, on the edge of a ploughed field and in wide open terrain.

Following an hour or so at this location the plan was also to include a visit to Tanfield Railway - a graveyard of trains and carriages, situated between Gateshead and Stanley. Again, star trails was the thinking behind the second part of tonight's photography outing, so I was looking forward to both visits. We landed at High Moorsley around 7pm, after parking the car a few yards down a public footpath that led to the weather radar. I'd scouted out this location a couple of weeks previously, so I knew how to find the place. I remember the initial visit very well, as the temperature was at zero degrees and my face felt like it was frozen solid by the chilly wind. I remember thinking that it would be even colder standing around while the camera pulled in the shots. My recce visit was done and dusted in ten minutes flat, as I quickly headed back to the warm refuge of the car. Tonight however, although it was still a tad chilly, it was nowhere near as brutal as it was on my recce visit, so that was a welcome sign, as we prepared to stand around in a snowy field for 90 minutes!

I ran with two camera's once again. Firstly I set up the Canon 5D3 next to the radar, lining up the North Star (polaris) above the golf ball like structure. Once the camera was up and running, I positioned the Sony a7s further down the field, as I noticed some nice lead-in lines in the snow. It was here where we stood and chatted while the camera's done their thing. An hour in and Mr Spider suddenly started vomiting. He said he felt ropey and didn't dare fart in case he shat himself!!!  Well, well, well ... we best pack up and head off. The cold chill may have played its part and won the day. We decided to give Tanfield Railway a miss, which was a bit disappointing, but when you feel like shit, you feel like shit. We headed back to the car and warmed up, before heading home. We had the radar shots in the bag, so the night wasn't a complete loss. I dropped Mr Spider off at Skinhead Towers, telling him to get his feet up and take it easy. I do hope he made it up those twelve floors in the lift without filling his boxer shorts.

After dropping Spider off I decided to head off to Seaham Pier to attempt a star trail. The night was still young, so why not. With Mr Spider now in more friendly surroundings, I was about to stay out in the cold a little while longer. Best make the most of the night before heading off home ...

Till the next time, catch ya later ...

A.C

A Night With The Stars - Terris Novalis

Hello again!

Sitting here on the sofa, telly off, can on, and another blog entry to pass the time away. Just as well I'm currently chilling out indoors as tonight's night sky is offering nothing to the amateur photographer, but not to complain eh - I've had my fair share of clear skies during the recent Xmas break. And on the subject of clear skies, it brings me nicely to the subject of tonight's blog write-up, my first night time visit to the Terris Novalis artwork, located in Consett, County Durham, a 25 minute drive from my base. In customary style, I've harvested a few words from my trusty old friend Mrs Google, which you'll find below in the form of a brief insight of Terris Novalis, cheers Mrs G ...

Terris Novalis in Consett was sculpted by Tony Cragg and won the Turner Prize. The sculpture is 20 foot (6 metres) high and is made entirely of stainless steel; it is 20 times the size of the actual surveying instruments. The sculpture symbolises the economic regeneration of the Consett area. It can be found on the Coast to Coast cycle route.

Late December 2016, a combined visit to Weardale, ending with a stop off at Consett to photograph the starry sky above Terris Novalis, which is situated just outside the town centre. As you'd probably gather, dark night skies and built up areas aren't a good combo, especially when you're relying on as little light pollution as possible to make those little sparkly things look as prominent as poss. On this occasion I made the most of what was in front of me, which is all you can do as a photographer, so the final position of the camera was vital in pulling in some acceptable results. The actual sculptures are positioned perfectly for astro photography, it has to be said. The most photogenic angle has street lighting to my back and fields in front, without surrounding light. Perfecto!

Running alongside the sculptures is the coast 2 coast cycle path, so visitors could show up at any moment, despite it being very dark and very cold. Oh aye, me clackers were feeling the pinch alright, make no mistake of that. Hopefully no-one would interrupt tonight's star trail with guiding lights. We'll see eh, sods law and all that jazz. And away the camera went - click, click, click ...

Nowt to do but stand around getting colder. I had my brother Chris along with me, doing pretty much the same thing, so company was at hand, which is a godsend when you're standing there twiddling the owld thumbs. Ten minutes in and two young girls, no older than 15, came waltzing by, supping blue WKD. They plonked there arses on one of the sculptures and sat there for a good hour. Typical eh. Then their mobile phones came out and they were waving them about in front of the camera, giggling their arses off. Looks like I 'll have to stop the camera, eh!!!!! One of them asked if I was taking photo's - I felt like replying "Why Like, are you taking the piss" 

Anyway, when they buggered off and we regained our territory, the camera had been running for an hour or so. Time to switch off and head to Consett main street for a bit of scran. Tonights supper - Kebab meat and chips, with garlic sauce and EXTRA CHILLI. Now, this gear warmed the cockles alright. Oh yes, this was hot stuff and I just knew instantly that me jaxey would resemble the Japanese flag the next morning. But hey, the scran was rather damn tasty to say the least, so let's forget about tomorrow morning's nuclear 'Fall out' eh. Just savour the flavour. Delicious!!! These road trips with the camera always involve a takeaway at some point, and why not, it's a nice way to round the night off before heading home to put the feet up and pour a glass of cold lager down me Gregory Peck. There is every need to over indulge, and why not - it is Christmas after all!

It wasn't long before I was dropping Chris off at his place then heading back along the A690 to AC Towers. That tin of lager was calling out my name and it time to put it out its misery. Tonight was a good one, very productive in more ways than one. It won't be too long before I'm back to work, so best enjoy what's left of the Christmas break by planning some more nights out with Mr Canon. The show aint over yet. January can wait, for the time being at least.

Thanks for reading my prattle. There's plenty more where this came from. Cheers, Ash

Astro Exploration - Hadrian's Wall Country

Hello again,
Another short blog entry for you today, as I catch up with a backlog of images from recent outings with the camera(s). My latest installment is another first for me - a visit to Cawfields, in Hadrian's Wall Country. With clear skies predicted we headed out and arrived around 7pm, parking at the edge of the water, with a fine rocky backdrop and a partially clear sky. The Milky Way could easily be identified as it arched above us and off into the distance. The place was deserted, which was no surprise. A nearby toilet block cast the only available light around us, which was ideal on a night like this. It really was supposed to be cold, yet I hardly felt a nip in the air. It probably was cold, as it should be on a mid February evening, yet it wasn't noticable once the camera came out to play. I think you switch off to these things once the cam is switched on! The stars shone very brightly indeed and many could be seen reflecting in the water in front of me. The Plough was easily identifiable, as was Orion's Belt and the Andromeda Galaxy, amongst others. Still water offered an ideal opportunity to grab a lovely reflection shot, with a nice cloud formation adding to the composition.

This is another place that I will most definitely revisit, for more of the same. It was a nice experience, treading where Roman's once did. An historic place in every sense.

Ash

Northern Lights - KP8 Predicted !!!

18 months ago, whilst on holiday at the Isle Of Wight, I decided to try and photograph the Milky Way. When I say try, it’s because I hadn’t previously attempted this type of photography, known as Astro, so my first objective was to locate the Milky Way and then set about capturing it with my camera. Until this point I had never seen the Milky Way – I had only seen very recent photographs of it during a brief research earlier in the afternoon.  At the time, during the Summer of 2014, the Milky Way stretched across the night sky from South to North, so I decided on a location to head to and set about the task of photographing it. The night in question will always be a one to remember, especially when I first saw the Milky Way for the very first time, in pitch black conditions, which was ideal as it stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. Photographing it was a lot easier than I had imagined. Infact, the hardest part of the whole experience was keeping my nerve, as the location was out in the sticks and under a blanket of pitch darkness, but I got the shot I wanted and that was very satisfying. And that was my introduction to Astro Photography, the night it all started for me and which continues to this day.

Astro Photography has lots of strings to its bow and it can be quite addictive, especially Aurora chasing, which I’ve been doing for a year, since my first sighting on 29 December, 2014. This brings me nicely on to today’s blog entry – another Aurora chase on the Northumberland Coast, almost a year to the day when I first saw the Northern Lights with my own eyes. In the hours prior to our road trip north on the A1(m), my mobile phone received lots of Aurora alerts through an app I have installed on it. A CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) had fallen from the sun two days before and was earth bound, which in turn causes the natural phenomena known as Aurora Borealis (or Northern Lights). The strength of the magnetic storm is measured in KP units and a reading of between 4 and 5 is usually the least you need to be able to view the lights from the North-East coast of England. Other factors need to come into play too, such as BZ, a reading which is created by waves and other disturbances in the solar wind. The further south the BZ reading is, the better chance of a display. Today the Aurora forecast was KP8 and the BZ was as far south on the dial as it could be. I’d never seen a forecast as strong as this so I wasn’t gonna miss an opportunity to get involved.

We arrived at Craster at 6pm and headed across the pastures to Dunstanburgh Castle, an ideal location looking North, in the direction of the Aurora. Clear skies had been predicted on the Met Office app, but by the time we reached the castle a huge cloud bank was heading our way. Not in the plan at all. A green glow could be seen in front of us and it was quite high in the sky – much higher than I’d seen before. It was very windy upon the crag where Lilburn Tower is perched and the winds got worse as the night wore on. A steep drop to my left wasn’t an ideal place to set up shop, but the vantage point was the best I could find considering a few other photographers were in place alongside us at this point. Over the next four hours we waited for the clouds to disperse, which they did to some extent, but as they headed north it was the last place we wanted to see them. Any colour that was on display was clouded out and before long we were closed down altogether. The plan was falling apart and although those mad KP alerts kept on coming through, the clouds made sure we had little or no chance of seeing the display we had earlier expected. Home time.

After the 30 minute walk back to the car, feeling somewhat deflated, I reflected on the one decent shot I managed to pull in (see above). Not a great display be any means, but at least I got something for my efforts. The night wasn’t a complete cloud-out however. We decided to stop off at St. Mary’s Lighthouse, Whitley Bay, on the off chance that the Aurora may still be firing closer to home. It was around midnight when we arrived and a green glow could be seen behind the Lighthouse. The tide was incoming and the late night display had brought plenty of photographers to this location, eager to catch a few shots of the display. A Lunar Rainbow could be seen next to the Lighthouse, which a first for me, so I quickly grabbed the opportunity to photograph it before it faded, which it did in a matter of seconds. We spent a couple of hours at St. Mary’s, hoping to see an upturn in fortunes, but the Aurora never really got out of second gear the whole time we were there. Again, I grabbed what shots I could before calling it a day, or night in this case.

The night had so much expectation riding on it, but looking back now it was a big disappointment. Maybe I expected too much, but then again… when a KP8 forecast comes through, along with a weather forecast of clear skies to the North…well, you can’t help but get drawn in by it all. Experience tells me that most Aurora chases often turn out to be a waste of time and effort. The best ones I’ve been involved in have been very much unexpected, so you learn to simply go with the flow, cross your fingers and hope you hit lucky. You win some and you lose some, it’s all part and parcel of the game. I suppose that’s what half the attraction is. I wouldn’t change it if I could. The expected or unexpected? It is what is. I’ll keep on chasing (wink).

Until the next one…

Ash  

Northern Lights, Bamburgh - April 2015

Hello again and welcome to another blog entry. I've been looking forward to writing about my recent sighting of the Northern Lights, also known as the Aurora Borealis. After a brief showing back in December 2014, I was hopeful of catching a better light show before the end of the Aurora season, which is normally in late March. There had been a handful of decent Aurora activity since December, notably the big one on St. Patrick's Day, but sods law kicked in and I missed them, mainly due to work commitments, and not for the first time either. So, when a predicted forecast of Aurora activity was on the cards in late April, I decided to push the envelope and get myself up the coast to photograph it. As it happened I was working until 11.20pm on April 20th but that wasn't going to stop me making the 130 mile round trip, even though I was quite knackered at the end of my shift. The opportunity was too good to pass, especially as the aurora prediction also coincided with clear skies and no moon, which are ideal for this kind of photography. So, with everything in place, it was all systems go!

I made the journey north with work colleague and friend Ryan Pearce, who like myself has only been doing Astrophotography for a few months. We were both excited as to what the night had in store for us and we weren't disappointed. After an hour or so on the road we were soon in position with our cameras at Stag Rock Lighthouse, Bamburgh, on the Northumberland coast. This was the same location as my first and only sighting of the Northern Lights, so we were more than hopeful of a good light show to reward us for our efforts. Pointing our cameras in a northerly direction we fired off our first test shots to see if we could pick up any activity. Bingo! A magenta cloud was fairly prominent on the horizon and what a start to the night that was. Soon we could see small spires and they shifted fairly quickly to the right, along the horizon. The spires got bigger and more appeared as the minutes passed. To the naked eye they appeared as a grey hue, but the long exposures that the camera pulled in showed them as bright green and magenta. I ran off a time lapse sequence whilst watching the dancing lights, which consisted of around 80 x 20 second exposures.

The Milky Way was very prominent and stretched across the sky between the Aurora and Bamburgh Castle. I was hopeful of bagging a shot of the full vista in front of me, although the vast expanse would only be achieved by taking several shots and stitching them together in Photoshop. The photo at the top is the result of taking 14 exposures and letting Photoshop do the rest. Once stitched I edited the image, which took around 15 minutes to complete. I would say it's one of my best shots to date. This time last year I didn't even know what the Milky Way and Aurora looked like, so to grab myself a shot like this meant a lot. A rare phenomenon!

The lights danced on the horizon for two and a half hours before an orange glow began to appear. Yes, the sun was on its way. We left Bamburgh at around 4.15am and headed home. Job done. This was a memorable night, to say the very least. I have compiled a time lapse video of what we saw on this eventful night and it can be found on my website. Visit ashleycorr.com and head off to the TV page where you will find the 2 and a half minute footage. Alteratively, if you have access to a Smart TV, go to the YouTube app and search for 'Bamburgh Aurora'. The search results will show the thumbnail image with my name next to it. The video has been produced in High Definition and I'm sure you'll enjoy it. It's only my first attempt at this kind of thing, but I think I done ok. And that's about it. Hope you enjoyed this blog entry. Cheers, Ash