Driving up the GC-60 road from Maspalomas on the south coast of Gran Canaria, towards the mountain town of Tejeda, I was very excited to find a large viewpoint overlooking the mountains to the north with a prominent sign saying 'Mirador Astronomico'.
My wife Liz and I were on a two week winter break on Gran Canaria, and, as was our wont, we spent most of the time driving around in our little hire car, exploring the less touristic areas of the island.
Always on the lookout for interesting viewpoints to photograph, this 'Mirador Astronomico' immediately went to the top of my list and I resolved to return that night, to see if the title matched my expectation of dark skies and vivid stars.
Well, when I arrived just at the end of astronomical twilight, I was somewhat disappointed to find the viewpoint was a gathering place for the local youth, who liked a lot of light and enjoyed driving up and down the mountain roads, shining bright headlights across the landscape which, covered in a light haze, developed a luminosity that outshone the stars above.
But having driven this far I certainly wasn't going to drive back to our holiday apartment empty handed, so to speak.
So I experimented and finally selected a set of exposure controls that gave me the brighter stars in the night skies above, while not completely overexposing the glowing, hazy landscape below.
And that was me for two hours, sitting watching the stars and the antics of the locals while my camera clicked dutifully away, capturing the hundreds of still frames needed to create this time lapse video.
In the end, after processing the images, I wasn't too disappointed with the results as the brighter stars could still be seen wheeling overhead, and all the action on the ground certainly livened the final video up somewhat!
Filename - arteara night timelapse 01
Camera - Canon EOS 6DMK2
Lens - 17=40mm zoom @ 20mm
Exposure (start of sequence) - 10 secs @ f/4, ISO3200
Exposure (end of sequence) - 10 secs @ f/4, ISO3200
Filters - None.
Shooting interval - 10 seconds
Location - Mirador Astronómico de la Degollada de las Yeguas, Gran Canaria, The Canary Islands
Music - Surrender - Asher Fulero
This clip - HD 720p, 30fps (4K, and 1080p HD formats also available)
Clip duration - 25 seconds
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2023 unless otherwise stated.