this week I'm going to show you how I
choose a location for astrophotography
whenever I'm scouting a location I
always think about what it might be like
at night whether there are big sources
of light nearby or if it's a good dark
sky location the main things that affect
how many stars you will get in your
shots are the moon and where it is in
its cycle man-made light sources like
cities or big industrial areas and the
air quality including pollution and dust
particles first of all it needs to be a
clear night so you can see the Stars
there are lots of apps for this but the
ones I use are the BBC weather app
AccuWeather and the new one have
recently discovered is clear outside
which shows cloud cover percentage
it also has so much other information
from fog and rain forecasts to sunrise
and setting times it also includes the
bottle plastic ale which I'll go into in
a minute next we need to plan around the
moon cycles for this it's good to get an
app like photo pills or the
photographer's ephemeris this will tell
you when there will be a new moon or
full moon where it will be in the sky as
well as lots of other resources to help
you they are paid apps but they're well
worth the investment you basically need
to plan to go out around a new moon
maybe a few days before or a few days
after this will give you very little
moonlight and a lot more stars with
man-made light sources you just need to
get as far away from them as possible I
use a website called light pollution map
to work out where the best places are to
go for astrophotography shots from this
you can see the color coding the whites
and reds our cities and big industrial
areas you want to look for the areas of
blue or black that are away from any red
and white areas saying this I've got
some good shots in the yellow and one or
two in the red areas from sand banks
Beach on the south coast of the UK on
the map you can see it's in a red area
however I was looking at to see towards
a really dark area with no light
pollution and that's why it still worked
these colors basically represent
differing levels of visibility if you
click anywhere on the map you'll get a
whole load of data appearing
the only thing I look at is the bottle
figure the bottle scale is a nine level
numeric scale that measures the night
skies brightness of a particular
location
John II bought all created the scale and
published it in the February 2001
edition of sky & Telescope magazine this
basically means that the lower the class
number the more stars you'll get in the
sky so class 1 is excellent and you'll
have a sky filled with stars class 9
you'll hardly see any if you only have a
short time to travel find the best spot
near you with this map then go and
explore you obviously need to wait for a
clear night but sometimes the odd cloud
in the shot can add to it then do some
research on air quality the heavier it
is the less stars you'll be able to see
here in the United Arab Emirates which
sometimes get hazy skies and this does
bleach out the Stars I just keep an eye
on the air quality when it's good I head
out into the desert away from any light
sources in contrast to this when New
Zealand has clear skies and a new moon
you can see so many stars as there is
very little dust or haze in the air
although they have bigger and more
frequent storms so every area has its
pros and cons just do a little research
in the area that you're at and you'll be
able to work out Wen's best to go out I
tend to look for places that are far
from cities if I'm shooting the Milky
Way I'll make sure there are no cities
in the direction of the Milky Way to get
as little light pollution in the shot as
possible if you have a light source on
the horizon this can really mess up the
shot if there are dust particles in the
air or if it's hazy these can then
amplify that light last weekend we went
into the desert I planned it properly
and I looked on this light pollution map
to see where the best places were we've
got a new moon and the air quality is
really good so it's a perfect time to go
out and shoot the stars these are the
shots that I got from this shoot I had
to make sure there were no really big
cities to the south and southwest where
the Milky Way was in the sky as long as
you do this you should get some really
good results another thing to think
about is the foreground element he needs
something on the
in the shot - almost anchor the milky
way to the ground or to have a landscape
that complements the starry skies
sometimes I'll use my car or maybe a
road or in this case in the leeward
desert a dune scape with a leading line
to the bottom of the Milky Way if there
are trees you can frame the sky with
those trees and if you want you can even
do a self-portrait as they say the sky's
the limit and that's about it with a
good app like photo pills the light
pollution map and Google Maps you can
plan a really good location for your
astrophotography shots all you have to
do then is wait for clear skies around a
new moon if there's anything that you do
differently to plan your Astro
photography shots let me know in the
comments below it'll be great to hear
how you do it as always if you like what
you see give me a thumbs up if you
didn't give me a thumbs down and for
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