Abbotsbury Beacon by Night

Description

After what seemed like an eternity, I got my first chance to photograph the Milky Way in 2017. After an initially disappointing shoot at West Bay about an hour earlier, the Milky Way finally rose from the murk on this fairly humid night.

I hiked up the footpath from the Coast Road to the South Dorset Ridgeway, and over to Abbotsbury Beacon, which overlooks Abbotsbury, The Fleet, and Weymouth and Portland beyond. Beacons like these were used for communication along the South Coast in olden times, and it’s easy to see why this site was chosen for one.

The sky was a stacked series of 10x 30s exposures, at 14mm, f/4, ISO 6,400, on an iOptron StarTracker Pro. The foreground was an 8-minute exposure at ISO 400.

A4 and limited edition mounted prints are printed on high quality Fuji glossy photo paper. Larger prints are available, printed on durable, scratch-proof and weather-proof vinyl, mounted on a 3mm thick aluminium composite board, creating a light, strong and unfussy product.