The west coast of Clare, incredable sky !!

Hi All,
Frank and I headed down to Doonbeg yesterday evening as the weather was looking excellent.
Anyway, we headed down there, the area was pitch black and I saw the most amazing sky I have ever seen, the entire milky way was visible immediately after getting out of the car, horison to horison!, I have never seen so many stars in Orion,Cassiopeia, Perseus or in Cygnus,.... yes Cygnus, even though it was skimming the northern horison it was amazingly visible, clearer then I'd see it on most summer nights.
I almost fell over the grass/drive edge as I couldnt see the railway sleepers as I thought I was walking towards the gate when I was infact walking towards the fence. I literally could not see my hand in front of me !!!

and then ..


the clouds came in
Not enought time to set up the scopes, we got small gaps in the cloud but by then the moon was up and it was as if someone turned on a 10KW lamp, ah well.
So we're still waiting for that immaculate clear night in west Clare with the big scopes, hopefully we'll get one before the winter is over.

Yip, it's defiantly worth the effort when the weather / moon is on your side
but last night was just typical.
We did get an hour or so or a break but we had the moon to deal with.

Still, I ran off a few snaps...
I'd love to get some wide field tracked shots from here,
my ETX battery is clapped out so I could only expose for a few seconds.

First one here I was looking to see could I still catch Holmes,
the moon washed it out but It lit the land/seascape
and with a bit of teasing in Photoshop you can just about see it.







It's only until you get a good night in a location like this
that you realize just how bad the LP in this country has gotten.





Before we packed up I tried a star trail shot,
(in clouds!!??)
It was of the Perseus area and Mars to the left.


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Looks fab lads!
Reminds me of the sky down at the homeplace in Kerry.

The shocking thing about those images is that they were taken with a 2/3 moon in the sky, if only it had been clear before the moon came up.
BTW, welldone on catching the winning image for this months contest.

It's a delight to see and hear of a night like this lads, those shots are great, It was the same in my backgarden in Cavan last night, wonderful clear skies, and being from Waterford, the coast there where I go is the same as you describe it, there's nothing like it !!

Keith..

So what time did yee get to bed then?, Looking at the shots I can see it must have been about 2am or later?

Keith..