Stevenstone Library at Night by Roger Moffatt

Milky Way sky over The Library at Stevenstone in Devon, England ~ © Roger Moffatt

Our Photo of the Week (POTW) was taken by British photographer, Roger Moffatt. Roger used a Nikon D90 and a 10.5mm fisheye lens. This photo is make from two images joined together. His exposure time was 47 seconds for the top image and 54 seconds for the bottom. Both were at ISO 800 and f/2.8. The building was painted briefly by a torchlight (Lenser T7 tactical).

Roger Moffatt

Yes, there was light pollution. This photo flies against an argument I often hear: "I can't do 'starscapes' in my area because of all the light pollution." While that is somewhat true, there is usually some distant corner of of your countryside that is less populated with people and lights. Roger found that in this corner of England. (England's population density of 395/km2 [1,023/sq mi] is about 12 times greater than the United States, and 30 times greater than my home state of Utah!)

Astronomers turn away now! Roger did not originally intend to join the two images together, and he admits that they technically don't match due to the fisheye distortion. He had to do a lot of post work to pull them together. Even though the disparities become more obvious the longer one looks at it, he likes the final artistic impact, and so do I.

Step-by-step post process: On Roger's blog, he shares how he exposed, processed and combined the two photos to make this final image.

More about Roger: You can learn more about Roger Moffatt at his website, and see more of his photography on his Flickr photostream. Roger is also the creator of The Golden Hour Calculator (used to find the "Magic Hour" for photography at any given location).

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