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Night Sky Over the Church of the Good Shepherd . . .     by Neil Creek

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The spectacular southern night sky spins over the picturesque church of the good shepherd, with thousands of stars spread out over a wide field.
© 2008 Neil Creek. All Rights Reserved (see policies). Contact for Use.

This photo was taken the night before the panorama of the church you can see here on this site. The weather that day had been unseasonably windy, to the point that the waves on Lake Tekapo even had whitecaps. This near gale-force wind was coming right off the glaciers and cut right through you. It was into this weather that I ventured out in the pitch black night under the spectacular night sky to capture some photos of the Church of the Good Shepherd by starlight.

Rugged up, bare handed, with tripod and kit bag, I looked around for a good spot, and fought the howling winds. I don’t have a cable release and I quickly discovered that I needed more than the maximum 30 seconds shutter speed. I spent the next half hour sitting by the tripod as low as it would go for stability, finger holding down the shutter while I took shot after shot counting to 120 or 240 seconds, trying not to move during the exposure. For fear of getting more exposure than the sensor, I came inside after half an hour. I only got this one decent photo, but it was worth it. It was this experience that lead me to buy a wireless remote shutter release.

This photo was posted by Neil Creek on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 9:58 am and is filed under Nature

13 Responses »

  1. how to draw & on August 4th, 2008 at 8:57 am:

    i have always wanted to go to new zealand, i think the photo opportunities as well as scenic areas to paint would be bountiful beyond imaging. This is a great shot, makes me want to go even more.

  2. Rafi on August 9th, 2008 at 10:27 am:

    Reall a fantastic photograph..

  3. Leather Bible Covers on August 16th, 2008 at 9:34 am:

    What a beautiful picture. I wish I could see stars that well where I lived!

  4. Matt on November 10th, 2008 at 7:28 am:

    Its a pity Leather Bible Covers. The stars at Lake Tekapo (very rural New Zealand near the Southern Alpine Ranges) are much more visible than in any city but only about 1/4 or so as bright as this image

  5. Lindsay on November 12th, 2008 at 9:06 am:

    WOW!! that is absolutely phenominal! I love the blotches of light right there in the center. I wonder what they are..

    Lindsay @ Bscphoto.com

  6. Neil Creek on November 12th, 2008 at 5:13 pm:

    Thanks everyone for the comments! The blue patches you can see in the centre of the photo Lindsay are galaxies! They are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two dwarf galaxies, each with hundreds of millions of stars, our neighbours in space.

  7. Jimmy Doukakis on February 7th, 2009 at 5:25 pm:

    The view in that picture is just absolutely breath-taking. Very nice work.

  8. maxdison on February 17th, 2009 at 7:26 am:

    what an outstanding work is!!!

  9. Church Architect on April 16th, 2009 at 1:04 pm:

    Absolute stunning picture!. If you had acess to advanced camera, you could have done living miracle

  10. Theo Cindrich on April 27th, 2009 at 7:35 am:

    Great articles & Nice a site.

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