[Artistic] Submission 143018 – Ethan James Mckinley-Rooke

With clear skies forecast, I set an alarm for 3 and awoke at 2 due to the cat being a little nightmare, so I thought, sod it, and just jumped in the van to head out on my first astro mission of 2024! Initially, I was going to drive to Stoney River, but something was telling me Lake Mangamahoe was the place to be. I arrived at a locked gate, which meant I had to leave the van and walk the 2.5 km to the lookout point with 15 kg worth of gear on my back. Strong-ass coffee helped for sure. As soon as I got the camera out, a few thick clouds rolled through. They hung around for a bit but cleared off pretty quickly, thankfully. I found my composition and set up a timelapse, only to get back to it an hour later with an error message on the camera... great! It did, however, manage to capture 110 images, which I have stacked on top of each other to create this star trail! If you look closely, you can see small white lights heading up to the summit of the Maunga. Quite jealous that I wasn\'t up there with them! Saying that, I don\'t get to do Astro much, but when I do, I\'m very humbled at how quiet and beautiful the world is at night - Very lucky!