Lacock Positive: January 2017

Meeting: Thursday 9 February 2017

We shall be reviewing members' images of British Landscape and the Kennet & Avon Canal for the forthcoming TriBattle, plus looking at a timelapse prepared by Philip Male and AV by David Sage. We will also be discussing how we are going to replace Wiggio as our Member's Only resource for images and documents.

At our last meeting, Andy Burns spoke on Astrophotography. Andy is chair of the Wiltshire Astronomical Society and has a great deal of knowledge which he regularly shares with different groups as part of the Society's outreach programme. For further information about WAS see www.wasnet.org.uk/

Andy took us through excellent images of the moon, the sun, aurora borealis, noctilucent clouds, solar halos, fog halos, comets, meteors, the milk way, galaxies and eclipses! He shared his knowledge of how to get the best out of compact cameras and DSLRs, the use of different lens and filters plus details of how to work out exposure times. Andy also brought his specialist equipment to look at - needed if you really get into the serious investigation of space!

He encouraged us to get out even our non-specialist camera gear to explore the wonders of astronomy, even from our light-polluted back yards. Though images from Hawaii, Namibia, South Africa, China and Spain looked awfully attractive..... Andy uses video and freely available software to get sharp definition and often makes labelled drawings of what he finds in the skies. So do investigate our 11.5 billion year old galaxy sometime soon!

Photoshoot: Sunday 15 January

A few members, who decided not to believe the weather forecast!, investigated the post-very-high-tide banks of the River Avon at Purton Boat Graveyard, north of Slimbridge in Gloucestershire. The way was a little muddy but there were still possibilities of finding images among the weathered boards and the copper nails of the boat skeletons.

Amanda caught us looking for shots - or boats? or ducks?

Derek got into construction

While Sue went for the monotones

Next meeting: Thursday 26 January 2017

We look forward to welcoming Andy Burns from the Wiltshire Astronomical Society who will give a talk 'Eye to the Sky' with explanation of some techniques for sky images.

Despite the weather, the last meeting was well attended and started with reviews of images by members on three subjects: Christmas Lights, The Colour Purple and Repetition. A few of the many interesting images are shown below:

Information was also given on possible sources for exhibition prints & mounts, followed by a discussion on possible ways of storing and displaying messages, documents and images for club nights which are accessible by members only.