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Comets & shooting stars over Ben Challum

Comets & shooting stars over Ben Challum


Postby AlexFrood » Sun Jan 25, 2015 1:43 pm

Route description: Ben Challum, near Tyndrum

Munros included on this walk: Ben Challum

Date walked: 18/01/2015

Time taken: 4.5 hours

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Image

It was meant to be a rest day, I have been up Ben lomond and Beinn chabhair there two days before. but the afternoon drew on and i became bored. So I had a quick look on walkhighlands for a short-ish day near by. and Ben Challum hit the bill, but the time I parked up off the A82 it was 3:30pm in the Afternoon and before long it was going to be dark soon. I started to look forward to the night walk up the hill on my own. I grabbed my hill sack from my van, checked I had spare batterys for my head torch and then added spare batterys for a spare head torch, extended my poles and started off into the dying light of another fine winter day.

I had planned to do some night nav but found the fence line leading to the summit a bit of a give away. So with head phones in I make my way up, passing as few fellows how found my time of ascent a little interesting.

Image

The trail was very broken in which was nice as the last two days had been hard work. I enjoyed almost two hours walking in dark without a head torch, the snow and what little moon light there was made it easy going.
i only really got the head torch out for the final steep 45 minutes odd, As the scoured snow and ice made the last little bit interesting.

The wee summit ridge itself was a lot of fun, something about walking by head torch light on a snowy ridge with the stars above is pretty special.

I reached the summit about the 2:45 mark which isn’t bad going. I had a few ideas of some images i wanted to take on the summit and spent the next 45 minutes playing arounds trying to get the image I wanted. The stars were out an had a little playing around with a glow stick to make the images a little more interesting. I left after about 45 minutes very cold and a bit dishearten i didn’t really get the image i planned.

Image

I ran the descent back to the Van taking only an hour and half to get all the way down, it definitely warmed me up.


It was -9c said the van’s thermometer, it must of been pretty damn cold on the summit to be standing around for 45 minutes. So after I pulled off onto the A82 again I discovered my gearbox wasn’t to happy about the -9c rubbish and refused to go into anything other than first gear for a few minutes.

After reviewing the images that night I did come across some I was happy with.

Image

I was told that what I thought was a satellite ( light line in centre top ) was in fact Comet lovejoy. High quality versions of the images are on my flickr.

Hope you have enjoyed this report, I've got another 5 to write still.
Last edited by AlexFrood on Sun Jan 25, 2015 4:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Comets & shooting stars over Ben Challum

Postby Wanderlust7 » Sun Jan 25, 2015 4:12 pm

Love your pictures Alex, they are fabulous, although my memories of that hill are not!
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Re: Comets & shooting stars over Ben Challum

Postby Beaner001 » Sun Jan 25, 2015 4:25 pm

Superb pics Alex :clap:
We'll done on doing it in the dark too :clap:
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Re: Comets & shooting stars over Ben Challum

Postby Andy74G » Sun Jan 25, 2015 5:37 pm

fantastic pictures :clap:
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Re: Comets & shooting stars over Ben Challum

Postby onsen » Sun Jan 25, 2015 7:35 pm

Great shots...it feels like you've walked into another realm when your making your way in the darkness.
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Re: Comets & shooting stars over Ben Challum

Postby jmarkb » Sun Jan 25, 2015 7:57 pm

Fabulous shots!

In the last one, I'm pretty sure the streaks are satellites or meteors. Lovejoy ought to be in there somewhere though, but to the right of the Pleiades: see http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/observing-news/spot-comet-lovejoy-tonight-122920141/ Maybe the slighlty fuzzy and greenish star near the top of theimage about 2 o'clock from the Pleiades?
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Re: Comets & shooting stars over Ben Challum

Postby AlexFrood » Sun Jan 25, 2015 8:17 pm

Cheers for the comments guys. On the subject of lovejoy I've just seen I've miss read the original message about the comet. He also mentions the green aeroplane looking spot.
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Re: Comets & shooting stars over Ben Challum

Postby JimboJim » Sun Jan 25, 2015 8:52 pm

Just amazing - the walk and pics. Ta.
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Re: Comets & shooting stars over Ben Challum

Postby Alteknacker » Mon Jan 26, 2015 1:22 am

More, more... :clap: :clap: :clap:
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Re: Comets & shooting stars over Ben Challum

Postby larry groo » Mon Jan 26, 2015 5:18 pm

Fabbo!!!

:clap: :clap: :clap:
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Re: Comets & shooting stars over Ben Challum

Postby tomyboy73 » Mon Jan 26, 2015 10:54 pm

Stunning
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Re: Comets & shooting stars over Ben Challum

Postby Walk-n-Roller » Sat Mar 28, 2015 7:40 pm

How do you take photo's like that?

Any advice, tips, links, tutorials to recreate the same?
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Re: Comets & shooting stars over Ben Challum

Postby AlexFrood » Sun Mar 29, 2015 5:19 pm

A long exposure and a tripod is the very basics of what you need to do images like this. I also used a remote trigger but your cameras build in time would work just as well.

Just going out and playing about with your camera and it setting would be my best advice.
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Re: Comets & shooting stars over Ben Challum

Postby AndyRoss77 » Mon Aug 03, 2015 11:26 am

Alex,

Fantastic photo's! Liking the glowstick effect too. I haven't climbed in the conditions that you have on this post, but reviews like yours have provided me with the confidence to make an attempt in the future. Especially with the opportunity to capture some amazing night scene photo's. Totally different perspective on Munro climbing!. Well played!.

Thanks

Andy
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