Winchester Hill.......

I was hoping to get away from work at around 1-30 this morning, but didn't actually get away until 2-35am.
The plan was to get upto Winchester Hill and try to get some images of the milky way.
Finally got the camera mounted on the tripod at around 3-10am.
Armed with my laptop loaded with the Stellarium programme, i could relate my surroundings to what was on the screen and to where the milky way should be.
Unfortunately, the bright arm of the milky way lay over the southern horizon, and was completely washed out by the light pollution caused by the city of Portsmouth, 18miles away and far below the horizon.
Overhead, the not so bright part of the Milky way wasn't visible at all, to the human eye, with my camera focused on firstly, Altair in the constellation Aquila, and then Deneb in the constellation Cygnus, i rattled off a series of shots using high iso settings, 1600 and 3200, and changing the white balance to different settings.
When i arrived at Winchester Hill the sky was full of stars, by 4am, there were barely a 100 stars to be seen. Although the Sun wasn't due to rise until 5-40am, the amount of light coming from the Eastern horizon simply washed away 99 % of visible stars.

Still, not a wasted journey, your eyes do become acustomed to the darkness, and it's suprising how much detail your eyes can pick up when they're used to the dim surroundings.

Hopefully another time another place and i'll get my Milky Way shot.

Larger image.........

j.