What a fantastic weekend photographing Stars in the Galloway Forrest Dark Skies Park the first Dark Sky Park in the UK.

With around 75,000 hectares of land & limited numbers of buildings means it can keep light pollution to a minimum.

Getting ready for our First night we set up in Glentrool next to Bruce’s Stone which we used to put some foreground interest – you can see it in the images below

View of Bruce’s Stone looking South over Loch Trool

Looking South West – this was a 50 sec exposure – ISO 800

With the Location now at the darkest it was going to get we messed around with long exposures and using torches to highlight some foreground detail in Bruce’s Stone and surrounding trees
The Orange glow behind the trees wasn’t visible to the naked eye when the shot was taken but i like the effect anyway

Looking East

In this shot looking North you can pick out a very well known asterism “The Plough” or “The Big Dipper” which the component stars are the seven brightest of constellation Ursa Major.
The Plough

The Second Nights Photography was at the Second Bruce’s Stone found near Clatteringshaws Loch and with less mountains we could see at lot more sky.

Wrapping up the night Photography i pointed the camera straight up and with a long exposure rotated the camera on the tripod to get some circular trail effects.

We spotted this little Church en route to our first Night photography location and decided to go back and take a photo before heading home

All Saints Challoch