Steve Paxton's photos with the keyword: Sand Dunes

We set out as clouds parted and we wanted to take advantage of no moon. We went to the Lancelin sand Dunes a Huge area. I was very reticent to go as I had the mount shooting the Helix nebula and the focus was not working as well as I would have liked. I did a dummy run of focus it worked so I let nina start it self at 9pm to start the night and night 3 saturday. You can see the position of the Helix nebula on the Milky way close to the planet Saturn. we drove into the dune in a 4x4 and first dune we got bogged in the soft powdered sand way down the end of the valley near the three white tops(exit of the dunes safety light). We got out by the use of tryer boards under the wheel. we arrived at this spot and the three of us started shooting. this was the very end of the night I walked into the "valley" right up close to the dunes to try and cover the lights from the small hamlet of lancelin ( left side). the dune to my left shoulder is bigger than a house you get no usable scale in the black of night. The Milky way was getting smaller and lower so I walked down the dune into the valley. we left a 3 am I got in the house at 4:30 am just in time to turn off the alarm then crawled into bed. It was a very cold night lots of layers on again. technically might be the first photo taken on the 19th only New Zealand is much ahead of australia. D810 ISO5000 Samyang 14mm F2.8 20Sec. 5 Vertical shots.

The Bright White Sands take on a whole new look at sunset... the three photos show you the huge difference in the three trips here in the day. The one constant the wind blown sand...