Amateur photographers have been chasing the Milky Way over one of Ayrshire’s most recognisable and popular beauty spots this week.
With greater travel freedoms granted by the Scottish Government on Friday, locals seized the opportunity to escape to Loch Doon for a few clicks beneath the stars.
Despite having to be up with the lark, their nocturnal adventures paid off as the images borne out of their early morning escapades are indescribably beautiful, with fiery purples and oranges dominating the shot and even meteors seen burning up in the background.
Bryan Shaw, who travelled from New Cumnock to take the above shots, said: “I haven’t been further afield than Auchinleck where I work for over five months so it was a great opportunity with the rules easing. A photo like that takes around two hours from setup to complete photo each.
“Unfortunately it’s not looking good cloud wise and after Sunday the moon phase washes most of it out. It’s coming to the end of the season for those types of photos so it was very much a last effort before waiting another year for that line-up for the photo.”
Craig McComb is another local who made something of a midnight flit to capture the above image which features the Milky Way over Loch Doon.
He explained: “I got out my bed at 2am, left at 2.30am with just under one hour drive to Loch Doon to shoot the Milky Way. The shot was taken around 3.45am. That image was a 10 stack image (to reduce noise) shot on a Canon 6D mk ii, Samyang 14mm xp manual lens, iso 5000, aperture of f2.8, and a 20 second long exposure.
“I used Starry Landscape Stacker to stack the 10 separate images into one final image which helped reduce the noise due to shooting at such a high iso. I’ve also a few single 20 second exposures that have meteors burning up in them.”
Over on the South Ayrshire coast, Jim Scott stopped just up from the Electric Brae to catch the Milky Way core rising in the distance, seen in the above image.
Jim said although light pollution posed a challenge, the night was so still and quiet that the experience was a very relaxing one. The photo was taken at a similar time, around 3.15am.
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