Spinning stars

Back in January, before all the chaos from the February storms, we set out one evening to drive to the nature reserve at Rye. I had a mind to try some astrophotography with the (slightly) famous red-roofed hut. The reserve covers more than a thousand acres of flat, low-lying ground by the sea. It has a wide variety of different habitats, including salt marsh.

Parking up about 75 minutes later, we set out on the wide footpath leading directly to the sea. The moon was due to set in about half an hour and we were surprised at how much it shone on the large bodies of inland water. In fact, I had never seen so much water at the reserve and it made for a magical walk. As we reached the hut, we realised there were going to be problems. Situated not far from the harbour, there was a long line of white, green and red lights along the length of the wall. Initially, I had wanted to photograph the hut from the other side, but I quickly discovered there was just one tiny spot without light pollution. So that is where I set up my tripod.

Checking the settings on my intervalometer, (it takes a set number of images at a predetermined shutter speed), I pressed the cable release button and stood back. It was going to take a while to shoot 75 exposures at 30 seconds each. About half way through, we spotted something speeding in our direction from the track along the sea front. It was a guy riding an electric bike and he had two of the brightest lights I have ever seen. As he turned to cycle past us, he lit up the night sky for what seemed like miles around. Fortunately, I was able to fix it later in Lightroom and featured above, you can see the final image. I would like to get it printed and framed eventually.