This summer I finally tried my luck at astrophotography. I’ve been fascinated by the night sky since I was a kid, and ever since I got my camera, photographing the stars had been on my list.
The technical basics are easy enough to learn from the countless guides available online. Finding a suitable location is harder. Astrophotography requires dark skies, away from towns and other sources of light, and going somewhere remote alone isn’t particularly appealing.
In early summer 2026, I found an astrophotography workshop in Sounio, Attica, led by a professional photographer. It was the opportunity I had been waiting for. For the first time, I also saw the Milky Way with my own eyes. It was fainter than I expected, but still an unforgettable sight.
With only a borrowed 24–70mm f/2.8 lens, my first attempts were limited to nightscape photography. The workshop was short, but I picked up many small details that would have taken me much longer to discover on my own. The results weren’t great, but they were a good start.
A month later, I joined another workshop with the same photographer, this time in Zagori. The three-day trip combined landscape photography during the day with astrophotography at night. Having some experience from the first workshop, I was able to concentrate on improving the small details.
The highlight came on the third night, when we visited a local retired astronomer and used his telescopes for deep-sky photography. Seeing the results from the telescope was amazing and gave me a glimpse into a completely different side of astrophotography. I’ve included a photo of the telescope I took with my phone, along with some of the targets we captured.
My third attempt came in mid-August during the peak of the Perseids. With the peak coinciding with a new moon, conditions were ideal. I had wanted to see the Perseids for years, so I decided to combine it with another attempt at photographing the Milky Way near my hometown.
A few friends cancelled at the last minute, but I went anyway. I had found a promising spot without checking it beforehand, and luckily a small seaside chapel turned out to be almost perfect. The wind, however, was extremely strong, making me nervous about leaving my camera on the tripod. Thankfully, the chapel provided some shelter and I managed to capture a few Milky Way shots. I also saw several Perseids and even caught a small one in two photographs.
Eventually, the wind and nearby lights made conditions too difficult, so I packed up and left early.
These three attempts gave me a great introduction to astrophotography, and I’m definitely going to continue. There is plenty more I want to try, especially star trails and improving my Milky Way photographs. For now, I’m just happy to have finally started photographing something I’ve been fascinated by since childhood.
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