Herb Riddle's photos with the keyword: Hartshead

A promising clear night draws me again to this local Hartshead Pike monument. We are looking south here with the bright lights of Greater Manchester encroaching from the right. I was hoping for a darker sky but I was perhaps a few hours too early for that. Enjoy full screen.

A rather rare occurrence happened this week when lots of our Solar System planets were almost in a line with the moon too. Here I am at my local Hartshead Pike monument looking up at the moon. The bright ‘star’ to the bottom left of that is actually the planet Jupiter. If we carried on left from the moon –just beyond my picture we would see another bright star which was in fact the planet Mars. Just at the bottom right corner of the moon is the Pleiades Star cluster (7 sisters) with the planet Uranus to the right of that. Traveling to the bottom right of the shot is another bright object –the planet Venus and if we were to travel a little more to the right and down out of my shot we would see the planet Saturn. Of course we also see the constellation of Orion with its famous belt here to the left of the moon What a fantastic night sky once we know what we are looking at! See PiP for Mars view. Essential full screen Enjoy the day.

Oops - forgetting its Wednesday and time for this picture. The misty road was to be my Thursday pic. I must be loosing the plot! A local landmark beckons me on this cold day. So it’s an uphill slog over snow covered fields until I get to an old time favourite walled lane. I am nearly at the end of it now and I see my goal of the old monument. Enjoy the day.

For this special 'World Photograph Day' I will share this scene from my childhood to the present day. It is our local 'Hartshead Pike', a tower that I have seen from one of my house windows for much of my life. This is a high, almost desolate spot where one can feel a special connection with the land and history. In these days of uncertainly and climate catastrophes it is nice to know that this seems to stand forever and can even be seen from flying aircraft coming in to land at Manchester Airport. The very long 30 second exposure emphasises the passage of time here. The present tower, built in 1863 by John Eaton near the site of an earlier one which was used as a signalling station, commemorates the wedding of the Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Standing at 940ft (286m) ASL it is one of our highest landmarks in this area. Enjoy full screen www.ipernity.com/group/worldphotographyday/doc

Overlooking my home town of Oldham and neighbouring towns of Ashton and Mossley. This monument has stood within my home eyesight for most of my longish life now. At 940' ASL it can get a bit nippy up here, especially when the snow is blowing. A previous tower was built here in the early 18c which you can see the remains of behind these youngsters, but the main tower started life in 1863. The town directly ahead is Oldham. For you photo technicians this was created using 22 portrait Raw photos with my 23mm Nikon lens, then stitched together with MS ICE. I used a Lee ND filter to darken the clouds. The original of this was around 30,000 x 6000. Enjoy

A night view from my local Hartshead Pike looking west towards my hometown of Oldham with the city of Manchester on the left too, including some of the brighter stars. I have left this at a very big 4000px wide so that you too can bathe in all its glory. This is a four photo stitch, 11mm, 800iso, 2.5s @ f5.6 Enjoy large, in black & F11 pip

A view of Hartshead Pike, a local landmark, taken just a couple of hundred meters from my home. We used to see this quite, just the same, from one of our windows but now high trees in the neighbours garden has ended all that. (We now have twittering birds instead –that is some compensation, I must admit.) Its mid April and well into Spring –you can tell by the amount of snow we have on this day. Best full screen

A glimpse of our local Oldham area monument here, called Hartshead Pike, from my old Panoramio collection. Standing at 940ft (286m) ASL it is one of our highest landmarks in this area and technically sits in the borough of Tameside. Long ago, I remember going in here as it was a small refreshment shop, now long closed and sealed up. I can still just about still see this from our house window. more info: www.ashton-under-lyne.com/history/hartshead.htm CWP Blue hour 2025, Joint Runner Up

A rare clear night beckons me out to my nearest high point only a fifteen minute drive from my home at around 23:00. Even so, in these days of semi-lockdown, there are other people still up here enjoying the views in the unusual warmth. This is almost a view towards the highlights of Oldham to the NW, Notice the still blue after-glow of daylight where the sun had dipped hours before, a result of our relative high latitude. The results of 12 portrait shots in a double vertical row with my Tokina 11mm taken at F5.6 for 10 secs using a clear-night filter to help take away the light pollution. Enjoy full screen. My thanks again to Steve Paxton for his invaluable help in producing these.