Llangwmlitfest

Biography

Steve Richards. I moved to Llangwm in 1999 with my wife and our two children. I have been retired since 2012 and then worked part-time for a few years as the caretaker for our local school.

I have been a keen amateur photographer since my youth. However, I recently sold all my camera gear in order to explore ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY! I used to live near the Gower peninsula and loved looking at the stars on warm summer nights. Back then, I could not afford the sort of equipment necessary to photograph the night sky. Llangwm is to this day blessed with very little light pollution. So with great patience from my wife (not more money!) I have invested in some equipment to take pictures of the night sky. I started taking deep sky pictures around two years ago I was encouraged by my friend Bill Maxwell who is also succeeding in producing some fine deep sky images (Two of his pictures are included in my display)

It is very challenging trying to obtain these pictures both from a technical standpoint and waiting for favourable weather. Bill and I have had to master running telescopes and small computers remotely. The goal is to obtain a large number (sometimes in excess of 100) of short (3Min) exposures of an object whilst maintaining it’s position in the telescope. The rotation of the earth makes this a real challenge. The pictures are then stacked together and processed to produce the final image. We are both members of Prescelli Astronomy Group which meets on the first Tuesday of the month in Letterston Village Hall.