Intro : It’s been 1 year that I started photography and at the same time understanding the technical stuff to get into Astrophotography. The quality of my photos has evolved since then but it’s the first time that I’m proud of getting THE picture of the Milky Way I was looking for. I’ve been preparing for months, determining that night on which it would be best to go out and shoot.

The location : La Prairie beach, found in the south of Mauritius. Actually, the best place on the island with a Bortle class 4. For info the Bortle Scale is used to calculate the brightness of the sky from 1 to 9. The more light pollution, the greater the class on the scale. La Prairie is one of a kind, since you can access the beach with your car so making it easier to handle your gears. At the back, lies the well-known Le Morne mountain. There being no street lights, you are in complete darkness, you can only tell the sea is just a few meters when you hear the waves.

The perfect time : I reached there at about 02h15 in the morning and the sky was just perfect with only some clouds at the horizon. Moon was setting itself into the sea. I immediately found the right spot for my composition i.e. the ‘not so famous’ leafless tree (used to be surrounded by the sea) with the Milky Way at the back setting into the ocean. Its angular position was right so as I could align the tree and at the same time make the most out of the milky way.

Plans : take 40x shots of the Milky way and 10x shots of the foreground (the tree) that I would stack in post processing to remove noise and further stitched to get my final photo. Moreover, I would be taking calibration frames (which would be used later when processing my pictures).

The weather : Just after a while after setting the tripod and the camera, I saw clouds coming from the mountain towards the beach so I knew I would be running out of time. I had no alternative than to forget about my plans and get the best single shots possible. Things got worse and I left at about 04h30.