Interview: Susan Pilcher
An astrophotographer based at Romney Marsh in Kent offers her thoughts about imaging at night along the UK coastline
What drew you to the coast as an astrophotography location?
I moved to Romney Marsh in Kent when I was 11, from Dover, and I suppose for me the coast is my go-to place. It’s where I just feel really comfortable and happy.
My favourite place to be photographing at night is Dungeness (also in Kent). It’s such an amazing landscape, which is so open and barren, with big skies and lots of really flat land. You can see for miles.
What are your favourite celestial objects to shoot over that landscape?
I prefer the winter skies and I absolutely
love seeing Orion rising up. [I try] to catch things with the different objects that there are down there – the fisherman’s huts and boats and things like that.
What advice would you have for someone who is visiting the UK coast and who is trying to compose an astrophotograph?
Maybe do a bit of scouting out in the daytime, because when you get there at night it will be pitch black. You can’t always see those shots, so maybe try to visualise it a little bit in the daytime.
What’s been the most special thing you’ve caught in your astrophotos? Certainly the bioluminescence – that was incredible. I’ve lived on Romney Marsh for 30-plus years and that was the first time I’ve ever seen it. I went up to the seafront around midnight and I thought, ‘Gosh, that’s really bizarre, there seems to be a funny bluey tinge on the water. Maybe it’s a reflection from an LED streetlight.’ But I didn’t say anything to anybody. Within days it was all over Facebook; the amount of people that that photo brought out to see it was amazing.