Milky Way from the Downs, 7-8 August

Now for something different from birds and dragonflies! 

Judging by the recent discussions amongst local birders about comets and other celestial events (e.g. aurora), I thought this post might be of interest.

It has taken me sometime to get to grips with some new gear for astrophotography, but last week I finally managed to get a sequence of Milky Way shots from a location on the Downs that, after a fair amount of processing, formed a presentable final image (see below).

This image was obtained using an astro-modified Canon RP, a 16mm wide angle lens, mounted on an iOptron Sky Guider Pro tracking mount. Note I didn't use any light pollution filters. This location appears reasonably dark by local standards. 

I took around 20 shots, each with a 2 min exposure time. In addition, I took a similar number of "darks" with the lens cap on, for calibration purposes. 

This time of year is good for Milky Way photography, as the brightest section is on display in the south, with the galactic core just above the horizon at our latitudes. The distinctive small red fuzzy blob just above the horizon is M8, the Lagoon Nebula. 

Now I've got a worthwhile result I intend to try out some different lenses on a variety of astro subjects!

Milky Way above the Downs © Stephen Burch

Central Spain again for GOSHAWKS etc! February 2026

In May last year I had a great week at Hides Calera in central Spain, which is a drive of about one and a half hours from Madrid airport. This whet my appetite for more and so I returned in February this year. For this visit, my top priorities comprised adult Goshawk at Hides Calera and Golden Eagle, at a new place - Hides Villuercas which is based at Canamero, a small town a further two hours drive away from Madrid.

In addition, many of the other raptors (Spanish Imperial Eagle, Griffon Vulture and Marsh Harrier) from last year were around, although in winter numerous Red Kites replace the Black Kites that migrate to Africa out of the breeding season. 

My first couple of days were disrupted by bad weather but I did have two excellent Goshawk sessions and a bonus in the form of a hide that had up to 7 Hawfinches coming in at close range, in addition to plentiful Azure-winged Magpies. At Hides Villuercas I did less well as the Golden Eagle had stopped coming in and I also had a blank session at a Vulture Hide. However I did have great views of a Bonelli's Eagle together with smaller birds including Blue Rock Thrush and Black Redstart.

Here is a small selection of the almost 40,000 images I took. For more photos and details of the trip, go to this page on my website. For my gallery of all processed photos to date, go to this page.

Adult Goshawk incoming in heavy rain!  © Stephen Burch

Goshawk in heavy rain  © Stephen Burch

Red Kite in steep dive  © Stephen Burch

Hawfinch in flight © Stephen Burch

Bonelli's Eagle in flight © Stephen Burch

Mega aurora display - 19 January 2026

At last, after months of frustration since a brief showing of a weak display back in April 2025, I had a brief opportunity to capture some more aurora images, to add to my sparse collection. 

Why is it that whenever there is aurora activity, nearly always it either in the early hours, cloudy in southern Oxfordshire or is too weak or short-lived to be of great interest?! 

This time however the activity was strong for two successive nights but even then clouds ruled out any views, apart from a brief window of just over an hour from about 22:15 on the 19th January. It had been raining until just before then, so I was very surprised to find clear skies outside the back door when I popped out again for a quick check! 

So I rapidly setup in the garden to see what was showing. This time I wasn't disappointed and there was a very strong display underway, completely filling the field of view of my 16mm lens on my full frame Canon R5! It was bright enough to clearly showing on live view, which is most unusual. 

I gave it about 20mins here, taking 8 second exposures at 10 second intervals using the camera's internal intervalometer. From these shots I was able to generate a short timelapse video. A still is shown below. 

Aurora as seen from the garden.
Click here to see a timelapse video on YouTube

Keen to get a less obstructed view, I then headed out a short distance to a reasonably dark location at the foot of the downs, that has a good northern horizon. But by the time I got there the aurora had badly weakened and the clouds were making a comeback. Nevertheless I persisted here hoping that I could dig something out of the less than impressive images I was capturing. After about half an hour the cloud cover had returned to almost 100% and it was time to go home. 

Aurora as seen from the foot of the downs.
Click here to see a timelapse video on YouTube

This was the strongest display I have seen since the famous G5 geomagnetic storm on 10 May 2024, which was (for me) most unusually (a) visible from nightfall and (b) un-interrupted by cloud.