Bay of Stars

On a dark and empty stretch of coastline stand the tall pillars of Albany windfarm, their mighty blades spinning in the night breeze. Over the sweeping bay the Milkyway galaxy slowly descends into the dark waters.

Theres an interesting lesson learnt with taking nightscape photos of windfarms that I've discovered (at least when taking wide panoramas that don't easily allow directing a torch light onto them). Not only do you have to time darkish skies with clear weather, but the wind direction must angle the windfarm blades to catch the light. Unfortunately, whilst the muddy yellow of the distant town of Albany casted the pillars in a faint relief, the blades were silhouetted and thus don't stand out at all (one can just see a faint darkening circle around where the turbine sits a the top of the pillars).

This was taken a couple of weekends ago, only just got round to processing it now. Taken from the Blowholes in Torndirrup National Park near Albany, Western Australia, the galaxy descends over the bay and the western horizon. Eclipse island is to the left with a working lighthouse, whilst on the peninsula to the right one can barely be see a disused lighthouse. This is one of those images I think looks nice, but the composition is just not great - getting a little rusty me thinks...