Planning a milky way shoot at Wembury Beach in South Devon

 Blogger isn't always the most intuitive platform to navigate - but it is free and simple to use and manage. 

To help you find information quickly on this blog, you can

• use the search bar using key words e.g. Asiair mini
• use the blog menu list by date 
• use this page which will be regularly updated https://undersouthwestskies.blogspot.com/2025/12/want-to-find-something-quickly-on-my.html
• visit my home page https://undersouthwestskies.blogspot.com/p/welcome-to-my-astronomy-and.html

Imaging session down at Wembury Beach - a milky way landscape

The Milky Way is back in our night time sky and this will be the first milky way imaging session of this year. 

These are my previous attempts at getting a good milky way landscape image at Wembury Beach: 

this was a tracked, stacked and blend photo - seperate sky and foreground. 

The latter is way too dark!

Another seperate sky and foreground shot - my camera had just been astromodded and so post editing didn't go well - as I grappled with sorting the colour balance

So much wrong with this shot, don't know where to start 😄

I was pleased with this shot - a seperate sky and foreground - the latter had some light painting over the mill building. The sky was a series of non tracked but stacked images 

A single shot image - just totally underexposed in all aspects

So, tonight will be my latest attempt to get a decent image - how do I go about planning a night-time landscape image session? 

Step one: an on-site visit to find some good compositions and to do some thinking about the kind of image I want to achieve. I also use AR on Photopills to position the milky way above the landscape foreground I am thinking of including in the shot

I have written previously about how I plan a milky way session here:  https://undersouthwestskies.blogspot.com/2025/12/editing-tutorial-guide-to-how-i-post.html  and also here:  https://undersouthwestskies.blogspot.com/2025/08/a-beginners-guide-to-post-editing-your.html

These blog posts go through some of my thinking when I am at a potential location. I also refer to a crib sheet because I'm at an age where I am somewhat absent minded and forgetful.  Below is my most updated crib sheet. 

Step two: finding an appropriate night for shooting

This is my research phase a few days before a session - here is what I check:

• The moon phase and size
• The weather on the night
• The position of the milky way in the landscape 
• What part of the milky way will be visible at what specific times

First app: Sky Safari which tells me step by step exactly what parts of the milky way will be visible, at what times and in what directions

App two is Clear Outside. Tonight my window of opportunity is between 0200 and 0300 and the skies are clearing then according to the app. I will probably have to use a dew heater band though. Winds will be coming from the north and I will be shooting to the South East so that should be fine and they are getting lighter. The moon will be 2% and by the time I come to shooting it will have set for quite some time. Its going to be a chilly night though. 

Third app is PhotoPills. An essential planning tool for this kind of astrophotography. Not only can I use it to see where the milky way will be positioned and at what times, I can also use it to calculate exposure times, hyperfocal distances and more. 

As a matter of course, I always cross-reference Clear Outside with the Met office app. I find that they very rarely coincide and this is evident tonight with this app showing clear skies throughout the night and Clear Outside clearly not! 

Step three - Deciding on a shooting plan 

This is the one I always find tricky. Picking the right aperture, ISO and shutter speed for the shooting plan I am aiming for. Another tricky bit for me is planning how many image targets I can safely do in one night. 

Tonight, this is my provisional shooting plan - I am aiming for a tracked, stacked sky shot which is then blended with a separate foreground shot - and here I will use either depth of field focus stacking OR hyperfocal distance calculations to ensure that all the landscape is in focus. So, 

1. I turn up an hour before the optimum time for milky way imaging - take some foreground landscape shots. I am looking at a potential foreground that includes some washed up tree trunks, boulders on a gravel/sand beach and then off to one side an old mill house. The milky way will be rising over the distant headland behind all of this. 
2. I then complete the milky way imaging from the same spot
3. Finally I collect some calibration frames at the end of the shooting session

So, what about shooting settings? 

I will be using an astromodded Canon 800D teamed with either a Samyang 14mm F/2.0 lens OR a Canon 22mm F/1.8 lens. Given I have a cropped sensor - then these focal lengths will be 14mm x 1.6 = 22.4mm  and 22mm x 1.6 = 35.2mm focal length respectively. 

Which lens? 

Well that depends - If I am going for as much of the milky way as I can get in the shot (which will be portrait) then I will use the Samyang. This also allows me to shoot with my Optolong L-enHance clip in filter as well. On the other hand - there is an opportunity to shoot a closer image of just part of the Milky Way around the Antares area using the 22mm or even my 50mm canon lens - but then I cannot use the clip in filter with those lenses. 

Normally I just go with my gut when I arrive on scene - the decision made implusively! 

Step four - getting the equipment together

My equipment for tonight will be as follows: 

• Astromodded Canon 800D with dummy battery
• Samyang 14mm F/2.0 lens
• Canon lenses 22mm F/1.8 and 50mm F/1.8
• SWSA 2i tracker
• Benbo carbon fibre tripod with gorillapod ball head and adjustable dovetail clamps
• Two 25,000mAH power banks
• One dew band heater strap
• Optolong L-enHance clip in filter
• Samsung A9 tablet for calibration frames
• Osprey rucksack
• Primus Lite stove for drinks

So, there we go - hopefully the weather will play ball and I will have sufficient data to create a final image some time next week. 

How do you plan your milky way landscape session?

What additions, alterations or tips would you make to the way I go about it? 

As always, tips, constructive advice always welcome - drop me a comment in the box at the end of this blog post.

In the meantime, clear skies, stay safe and keep looking up

Steve 

A single shot image before my Camera was astromodded