During the first half of July my family and I had our summer holiday and this year we decided to go to Rhodos. I must admit that the presence of dark skies is part of the selection criteria 🙂 The touristic north side of the island is not suited for astrophotography. However, a 1 hour drive with our rental car took us to the hills inland. The spot I selected, using the light pollution maps, was south of the little village Laerma. During the three nights I spent under the dark skies, there was only 1 visitor, a nosey hedgehog. Here are some results. All pictures were taken with the same setup: a tripod with a Skywatcher Star Adventurer mounted on top, a modified Canon 6D and a Samyang 135mm f2 lens @ f2.4. All the pictures are a stack of 50 to 90 frames of 60s at ISO1600. The north latitude of 36° offers better views on more southern constellations like Scorpius and Sagittarius this time of year. Feel free to count the stars and let me know so I can check the level of precision of the star counting algorithm of my image processing software Pixinsight.
Rho Ophiochi in Scorpius. Saturn at top center is photobombing the scene.
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North America nebula & Sadr area in Cygnus
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IC1396 area in Cepheus
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Lagoon and Triffid nebulae region
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Heart and Soul nebulae @ the Double Cluster in Cassiopeia
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Aquila area in our Milky Way
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Altair area in our Milky Way
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My son Tom joined me for one night and managed to stand still during this 60s 1 frame exposure. A Samyang 14mm f2.8 lens was used for this picture.
Bart Delsaert - Astrophotography 