Tin Mines and Granite Cliffs
April 2023
Cornwall is a beautiful part of the country and has some of the darkest skies, so an excellent location for astrophotography, There are many Tin Mine ruins that make a great subject for a night sky composition. There’s also plenty of stunning coastline with high granite cliffs for sunset and night compositions.
April is one of the best times to photograph the Milky Way as it’s still possible to get an panorama arch shape and the brightest part of the Milky Way, the galactic centre, is visible for a couple of hours from 2a.m. to 4a.m. before the skies start to lighten. However it does mean a very late night!
Starting the night with a sunset - this is Mullion Cove.
Then maybe some light painting and star trails. This one of Lanyon Quoit is made from over 100 shots combined in an app called StarStax and a light painted foreground.
I only had 5 nights in Cornwall but luckily 3 were clear enough for Milky Way photography.
Probably the most stunning location for a Milky Way composition was the Disused Lifeboat Station on the Lizard peninsula.
The last night was really out of this world. The Aurora had been forecast to be visible in the UK that day, but the display that greeted us at Goonhilly Earth Station was truly magical. It is very unusual to see such a display at just about the most southerly point in the UK. Extremely lucky!
If you would like to see more images from this trip, then please take a look at my Portfolio on this site.
As I mentioned earlier, Cornwall is an excellent location for astrophotography, but you need knowledge of the area. Ideally you would look for locations and compositions during the day and then hope that you can find them when you return at night when the sky is clear. Not very easy when you live in London and have limited time.
So last April I joined another 4 photographers on a Natural World Photography photo tour of Cornwall. For 5 nights Robert Harvey led us to around 16 different locations across the western part of the county.
Special thanks to Robert for organising a fantastic tour, I really recommend him. Thanks also to
Chris Colyer for finding some of the locations for us and to my fellow photographers - Tim, Abby, Phil and Mohan.