Astrophotography, Camping and Book News
New Photography!
It’s been a good couple of weeks. On Tuesday 18th, my family and I took a few days to get away from our normal routines and went camping. This isn’t unusual for us, as my wife’s family in particular have done camping annually for about the last fifty years. This year, what with the pandemic throwing things out of alignment, we didn’t get the chance to go when we would usually. However, an opportunity came up, quite last minute, to go camping for a few days at Ashburnham Place in Hastings. This marvelous stately home and expansive gardens holds a very special place in the hearts of all of our family, since it is where my wife’s family spent the majority of those fifty years camping with others from our church group. And it truly is a spectacular location. The last time we camped there was 2006 when circumstances changed for the owners of the land and they couldn’t allow such a small group as ours to essentially have the whole place to ourselves any longer! After we were prevented from camping there, we sought out a different campsite closer to home, and eventually settled on the Thriftwood Scout Camp in Brentwood. It’s a great campsite and has been fun for many years, but… it’ll never be Ashburnham. So, it was brilliant to be given the opportunity to go back there again and spend a few days on one of the fields.
Just before we went, I quickly realised that Ashburnham is also a pretty dark site. So I had in mind to take my camera gear and see if I could do some astrophotography in the event of a clear night. Well, the first night we were there was incredibly clear and dark. And, I managed to take these two photos that I am very pleased with:
The first of these images was a stack of five photos to capture most detail in the Milky Way, and a foreground exposure. The second was me playing around on the third night with a time-blend; whereby I took photos from the same location from just before sunset, right through to when the Milky Way became visible. I’m pretty pleased with how this playful edit came out - it’s quite striking! And the beauty of both of these photos is that I barely had to move at all. This was the view from our tent :)
Sadly, the first night was the absolute clearest; it remained so for a good few hours until after midnight. I had very little time to work with when the stars came out on the third night, though, as the clouds rolled in after about half an hour. I was planning on walking to some other locations on the third night, but… Can’t do much about the weather! Speaking of weather; the whole of the second day we were drenched in torrential rain. All the joys of camping :)
From the Grave of the Gods News
Now the bit that you’re all here for: some news about the books! Well, I’m pleased to say that just before we went away on holiday, the first of my amazing beta readers finished reading From the Grave of the Gods and provided me with his feedback. Naturally, I spent some of the time while camping implementing changes to the novel - most of which was stuff I was feeling the same way about. Plenty of small changes need making, but so far I’ve made changes to the novel’s prologue, and I have also completely reworked the ending.
One beta reader down, four to go.
The Re-Emergence News
The companion novella has now gone through my personal editing process - much faster because it's a lot shorter - and is now out in the wild with beta readers! Incredible to think that I've now got two completed stories being read by other people. Mind-blowing to me.
