In a field about 4 miles outside Cambridge is a treasure trove of astrophysical history. Giant iron skeletons tower above the hedges and ditches, interspersed with rows of wires strung between wooden posts, resembling a dormant vineyard.  This is the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, at which in 1967 a young Jocelyn Bell discovered pulsars using an instrument she helped to build.  

During one of the scarce clear nights in January 2024, I visited with the intent of capturing three shots.  I'd wanted to do an extended star trails image over the beautiful structure of the One Mile Telescope, a foreground that in my eyes never gets old.  Additionally I'd planned two mosaics, one of the Cygnus Milky Way and one of the Orion region, both with the One Mile in the foreground.  

In the end I captured over 5 hours of star trails, and after painstakingly removing all the usual plane and satellite imperfections (and dealing with an accidental shift of camera position when I changed the battery), I got a shot that I'm super happy with - definitely the best star trail image I've created and I had a lot of fun with editing it.

Unfortunately the two mosaics I captured proved almost completely unusable.  Whilst they stitched (a miracle in itself given the haphazard way I shot them), the images suffered from horrible gradients and brightness differences that I've managed too get almost nowhere with.  I just couldn't get an image I was happy with - maybe some data to return to in the future, especially if I ever graduate beyond PhotoShop.  I felt rather silly wasting a stunning 5 hour period by over complicating things; I should have gone for a shorter focal length and just captured more exposures, rather than going overly long (85mm) - it's not as if I was planning on printing the final image super large!

So a few weeks later I returned to capture the Orion image at a much more sensible 35mm; sadly it was too late in the season to capture Cygnus as it was now well within the murk after sunset - one to save for next year (provided no work has started on the giant solar farm currently awaiting planning permission for the area!).