Monday 1 April 2019

Wheal Prosper Sunset and Star Trail



Cornish Mine Engine Houses are an iconic feature of our local landscape and heritage and are much appreciated and photographed by locals and visitors alike.

The image above is typical of most peoples capture of an engine house and its says 'Cornwall' through and through but its worth taking a look at using the same prop after the sun has gone down.


In this single thirty second exposure above I have carefully lined up the towering chimney of Wheal Prosper to critically aline it with the insignificant pole star that looks just like a thousand other so you have to do your home work to get this one right.

In the Star-trail sequence below I have taken a series of 200 thirty second exposures to record the movement of the earths rotation over a continues period of one hour forty minutes and now you can see the effects of the critical tripod positioning in relation to the pole star which is dead centre to the axis point of the earths spin.


It might also be interesting to note that the single Sunday evening aircraft track that was recorded over just two of the exposures passed oh so close to the pole star and the towering chimney focal point.

Another point worth a mention is that what might fortunately look like a sunset afterglow in the lower part of the sky is actually light pollution fro the town of Hayle which lies to the north of Rinsey.  It is unavoidable and in this case perhaps added to the interest of the image.

As an added bonus even if it was out of frame I had a fine view of the International Space Station passing through directly overhead for several minutes.

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