A night-time One Hour Outside (well, three) stargazing in Bannau Brycheiniog with Dark Sky Wales. And a few notes on taking dark sky photos with an iPhone.
Spending time outside isn’t confined to the daytime… and this One Hour Outside themed adventure journal features an example of that. I mean, you can’t exactly go stargazing in the daytime, can you?!
The Stargazing and Astrophotography experience we had with Dark Sky Wales in Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) was fantastic. It was every bit as interesting as I’d hoped it would be – my curiosity for the universe in which we live felt utterly massaged.
This was one of two experiences I bought my husband for Christmas. I searched this one out because he’d enjoyed the quite simply stunning starlit sky in the Sahara Desert last autumn, and knowing that there is a Dark Sky Reserve in South Wales, a little over an hour’s drive from home, it had to be done.
You will know if you regularly read my weekly blog episodes, that actually getting to go on this activity in March was third time lucky. Our bookings in January and February were both called off by the guide due to thick cloud cover (no point going stargazing when it’s cloudy!). Thankfully, this time the sky was clear, and once our eyes had adjusted to the dark, we could see and experience an incredible night sky.
Guided Stargazing and Astrophotography
The Stargazing and Astrophotography experience with Dark Sky Wales promises a tour of the night sky, viewing familiar and unfamiliar constellations of the northern hemisphere, and deep sky objects such as the Orion Nebula. You don’t need any of your own equipment (although you are welcome to take it if you do), and the session includes tuition on the correct use of binoculars, telescopes, and astrophotography equipment.
In the run up to the date I received regular emails from Dark Sky Wales about the weather (this happened for all three of our bookings). It was touch and go; while the skies looked like they would be clear, there had been an inordinate amount of rain which meant the ground at the normal meeting point was completely saturated.
No-one wants to stand in cold muddy puddles for three hours in the middle of the night, and so the team moved the session to an area of hard standing closer to the visitor centre. Although this meant our feet would be more comfortable, it meant we didn’t have access to the warm room or toilets for our experience. We had been told this in advance and were given the option to change our booking if we wanted to, but we decided we didn’t want to wait any longer!
A Very Relaxed Experience
We arrived at Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Visitor Centre, which we’ve been to a number of times, just before 10.30pm.
Getting there felt like something of a drama because there was a major road closure we didn’t know about until we were the wrong end of it, and all the extra time we’d allowed to check in to our hotel (Premier Inn Merthyr Tydfil) and get changed into all our warm layers was eaten up going a very long way around. Instead, we had to do a quick change in a layby somewhere in rural Wales, and arrived with minutes to spare. Oh well.
Thankfully, the visitor centre is easy to find, and once we’d parked up, we made our way to the meeting point with our head torches on red light mode. There were around 12 of us, and our two guides already had the equipment set up and pointing at suitable places in the night sky.
With white light banned as far as possible for the duration of the activity, we first spent 20-30 minutes studying the sky without any fancy tech, to give our eyes a chance to adjust to the darkness. We started with some basic stargazing, noticing all the usual big hitters – Orion, Leo, Big Dipper (Plough), and others. Allan – the lead guide – also pointed out some stars used for navigating at night.
As the minutes passed by, more and more stars became visible, and the initially black sky was filled with twinkling lights.
From a Galaxy Far, Far Away
Our guides were incredibly knowledgeable, and the equipment was very fancy – which combined to make a perfectly geeky night outside. I initially wondered if the three bits of kit they had set up would be enough to share between the whole group, but it definitely was. There was a set of binoculars, a telescope, and a bigger telescope with DSLR kit attached to it for the astrophotography.
As the experience went on, we looked deeper and deeper into space using the amazing kit, learning how to spot galaxies, nebula, and other objects in the universe. It really was incredible.
Our guides from Dark Sky Wales made it very accessible. Even though the conversation was all about the science of space and the technicalities of astrophotography, it was an informal experience with plenty of time to look at the stars and ask all our questions.
There was also time for us to mess around with our own DSLR, and even try some iPhone photography (more on that in a moment). But, of course, the real highlight was capturing images of deep space on the borrowed camera kit set up by Dark Sky Wales (they set it up, we pressed the buttons!). We took photos of all kinds of galaxies, some of which are dotted through this post.
A Chilly Night
It was SO cold, and I don’t mind admitting that by 1am, 2.5 hours into our stargazing activity, we were suffering from particularly cold toes. But it was worth it. We were the last couple standing, and got so much from our time spent with Dark Sky Wales.
It really was a fun and fascinating One Hour Outside activity, and I would highly (highly) recommend Dark Sky Wales to anyone looking for a similar experience. Having the opportunity to look up at the night sky and see other galaxies up close was a real privilege. I learnt something, too, and it’s made me want to learn more. I can definitely see us booking another session.
Allan offers other experience types, including a shorter group stargazing activity, moongazing, a mobile planetarium (which I know Allan takes into Schools using some of the profits he makes from the paid experiences) one to one telescope tuition, and even weekend stargazing trips in the Cambrian Mountains.
Astrophotography on an iPhone
I’m not going to suggest for a second that iPhone photos are anywhere near as good as the images you can get on a DSLR, and especially not if you have anything like the equipment we played with in Wales. I mean, just look at the shots I’ve included in this blog post – these are the ones we took with our guides on their high-end camera mounted to a very fancy telescope. See what I mean?!
But… you can take up to a 30-second exposure on an iPhone (mine is the 14 Pro) using the native Camera app. Which is a nice option if you happen to be somewhere cool at night and you only have your phone to hand. You’ll need to use the Night mode feature – and a tripod.
How to Set a 30-Second Exposure
Here’s how:
- Get your iPhone positioned where you want it, preferably on a tripod or stand (I have had my Joby GripTight phone mount/tripod since 2015), but you could also fashion a holder out of whatever you can find. You just need that phone to be completely still, so try and avoid doing this handheld.
- Open the native Camera app on your phone. There are some third-party apps which will do fancy things with low light photography, but this is how to get long exposure on your iPhone.
- Assuming it is dark enough where you are, the Night Mode icon (a moon) will display. The icon turns yellow when night mode is active. If it doesn’t display, it’s not dark enough.
- Your phone will automatically choose an exposure time for you, but you can adjust it manually. Tap on the moon icon, which opens various options at the bottom of the screen – drag the slider left or right to shorten/lengthen the exposure time. The iPhone 14 Pro allows up to 30-seconds.
- Take your photo by tapping on the shutter button on the screen (I’d avoid the physical button on the side as this will certainly move the phone). Try to be very gentle, any movement will impact your shot. And remember to leave your phone alone until it has finished taking the photo – you can see on the screen when it’s finished.
- If you aren’t using a tripod, your phone will give you clues about any movement by displaying crosshairs – keep the crosshairs aligned to reduce motion blur. It’s like a game!!
Let me know how you get on your next night time photography adventure.
A Few Words on Booking Experiences
The likes of Buyagift and Red Letter Days are fantastic places to find and book experiences. There’s so much choice and inspiration on those sites, and I use them quite a bit for helping me get my bucket list ticks sorted.
But it does pay to ‘shop local’ when you do experiences like this. I booked this stargazing experience directly with the provider in the run up to Christmas. This meant the booking – and therefore the money – went straight into the pockets of this small business in South Wales.
I bought the Stargazing and Astrophotography activity as a Christmas gift for my husband. It normally costs £55 each, which I reckon is a fair price for our three-hour experience – although I did use their Christmas discount (I booked in early December), which gave me a very welcome 20% off. The discount was advertised on facebook and Instagram.
What do you think? Comment below...