The Milky Way from Ynys Mon

The night sky on 16th August 2023 North Wales, UK.

This photograph has had the minimum of basic editing — increased exposure and contrast. I wanted it to look like the view I’d seen, which was awe-inspiring just as it was. The galactic centre is partly obscured by the inevitable mist at sea level in the UK.

The gear I used was my Olympus Micro-four-thirds E-MX1 with an Olympus 7–14mm wide angle lens and a Manfrotto tripod.

The camera was set to manual to give full control of the settings. As I was using a tripod, image stabilisation was turned off.

This photo was taken with the lens set manually to infinity and with the zoom at 7mm for the widest angle I could get. This is a 14mm full-frame equivalent. The ISO was set at 2500, the aperture at f2.8 and a 20-second exposure was dialed in. I set the self-timer for a 12-second delay to make sure there was no residual wobble after pressing the shutter release and moving away from the tripod. The resultant image was underexposed, but I knew I could increase exposure while editing with less introduction of noise than if I’d increased the ISO any further.