Kelston Roundhill and Roundhill Barn

Here’s a view I took of the Clump from the afternoon school run on my phone. There’s a fantastic row of beech trees at Kingswood School looking our across Primrose Farm. The Klump is often such an unmistakeable and stark image; I like the way here it peeks through here even when the picture is all about the near blossom, and the strong bough of the beech tree tries to frame it and contain it. Rather expecting a “keep practising the composition” message from our panel of judges (which is shaping up to be pretty fab by the way).

Here’s Matt’s moonshot story (see also “How hard can it be?” and “Propitious date & time 15 April”):

A trial run the night before made me realise that I was going to be out of position and unlike William I realised that the river was going to be in the way. I found a new location and set up my gear. The offset was due to the fact that the clump is not at sea level, which also accounted for the delay in seeing the moon.

With regard to the photo itself I had to overlay two shots on top of each other. One shot is exposed for the hill and one exposed for the moon. The reason this is necessary is because a digital camera is not as good as the human eye at compensating for very high levels of contrast. The human eye can make selective adjustments to the exposure of an image it sees so we can see the detail in the moon and the clump at the same time. While software like photoshop can make selective adjustment to the exposure levels of a photo after it has been taken it can only do this for a range of about 3 or 4 stops only. For the moonshot exposing for the moon leaves everything else blacked out (like William’s photo) while exposing for the landscape leaves the moon as a white ‘burnt out’ disc with no recoverable information.

The photo is nonetheless genuine and not a creation of photoshop. If it were I would have taken a pin sharp close up of the clump and silhouetted it against a stock photo of the moon. (now there’s an idea). As it is you can see the limitations of my standard 55-250mm kit lens on a modest (Canon EOS600D) camera after a heavy crop of the final image. For those interested in such things the shot settings are as follows: Moon 1/25 sec, f:11.0, ISO400: Landscape 1.0 sec, f5.6, ISO400

Admin note: I find this remarkable, all the more so having been prewarned and tried to be in the right place at the right time. But I think this blog theme doesn’t show low light pictures off to best advantage. Will try to explore some sort of plug-in. My friend Paul recommends Fancybox but I cant see how to apply it to a standard WordPress hosted blog (there’s no plugins menu). Glad of any advice. This may mean going premium…

Now we’ve got round to announcing the photography competition perhaps it’s a good time to share this:

Kelston hill at the end of a rainbow by BonnieMari

Stunning: a bit science fiction, a bit folk-magic, perfectly placed. Unrepeatable. It came with an email from Bonnie

I was on my way back down from walking to the top of the hill and happened to look back at the right moment to see Kelston Hill at the end of a rainbow.

She’s Fine Art Masters student at the splendid Bath Spa Uni; you can see her Masters’ degree and other work here. Really starting to see the Klump in a new light here…

So…what happened on the night of Tue 15 April, the date forecast by Matt Prosser as propitious for seeing the Klump silhouetted against a full moon? 

Here’s George’s and my story. My mate George Blake and I headed out to the designated location. At the forecast time: zero moon, no sign of Matt, but some mozzies. We took a photo on my phone. After a bit we headed home.

Photo: Kelston Roundhill on night of 15 April with zero moon

Five minutes into the journey we saw the most enormous orange full moon rising over the A4. So we u-turned and went back to designated spot. But the moon was a clear 5-10º to the right of the clump! We needed to go several hundred yards to the north. But there was a river in the way.

So we walked along the river past the boat community, hit a hedge and gave up. We did try a photo to show the misalignment, but my phone doesn’t have fancy filters and can’t do much in low light levels.

Full moon rising to the right of an invisible Kelston Roundhill

I think it’s a bit early in the photo competition process to say we have a clear winner.

Next installment: Matt’s story.

Kelston Roundhill is celebrated in songs poems and pictures. It also has a special resonance in photography. We’ve received some terrific photos of the Klump this year so we’ve decided to declare a photography competition.

First prize kindly donated by the thriving local business at Park Farm, Kelston is an award-winning Bath Soft Cheese. Inevitably there may have to be a consolation prize involving hard cheese. There may be other prizes also; we haven’t worked that out yet. It depends what entries we get.

We’d be delighted to receive any entries from all ages. Email is simplest: kelstonroundhill at gmail dot com. Just mail in any entries, and let us know anything you want to about the photo and if you’re happy for us to post them on the blog.

A lively Kelston village hall AGM heard from Graham Padfield about the history of the village, with special focus on the more than colourful Elisabethan figure John Harington. See rough transcript below (map courtesy BathinTime)

John Harington’s estate at Kelwoston

Continue reading →

Here’s a heads-up for photographers who love Kelston Roundhill. Matt Prosser writes in to say

on Tuesday 15 April 2014 the full moon will rise East-South-East at 20:34, some 30 minutes after sunset.  If the sky is clear it should offer a great opportunity to capture the Kelston Roundhill clump of trees as a silhouette in a full moon.

His evidence is drawn from a crafty app called The Photographer’s Ephemeris, described as a map-centric sun and moon calculator to help plan outdoor photography shoots in natural light. Anyway, here’s the background to moment Matt has identified:

He further recommends

A long shot with a long lens is essential to reduce the size of the trees and maximise the size of the moon. I’m thinking about going to Avon Lane by the sewage farm for the shot.

One feels the makers of Stonehenge, the pyramids, Macchu Pichu and any other astronomomically-oriented ancient artefacts would feel entirely in sync with any photographers found gathered by a sewage farm shortly after dusk on 15 April this year, hoping for a clear night. Good luck!

In preparation for new planting in the iconic clump we’ve erected a temporary deer fence to protect the new trees. It will be supported by a park railing for longer-term protection.

The trees (up to 250 of them) are being contributed and planted by a wonderful group called the The Conservation Volunteers. It’s an exposed site, with south westerly wind ripping through. With some vandalism, and sheep and deer wandering through at will there’s no undergrowth for protection and no self-seeded new growth. So the new planting will need protection.

Thanks to Paul and Gerard Robinson for a great job putting up the fence. Their sheep graze the Roundhill, and produce excellent Bath organic lamb: highly recommended.

We’ve included a gate to get access to the clump for clearing and planting. If you would like access (eg to visit some memorial inside the ow fenced off clump) please contact us by email or call the managing agents Strutt & Co.