This year 2020 has got a virus. So what?!
My last holidays were at the beginning of February and now I am waiting badly for September to arrive, hoping to hit the road again than.

Meanwhile as I had to stay at home, in beautiful Franconia and had a lot of time to work on my nighttime photography skills.

First night out to catch the milky way was in April, in the middle of the hardest lockdown of Germany which we had in Bavaria. Was somewhat scary beeing out there in the night at 2.00 am, with no cars on the road and no planes in the air… and not to think of what I would tell the police if they might catch me photographing while I was supposed to stay at home…

Next time at new moon social contact was still forbidden, but at least we were allowed to leave our homes without a severe cause.

Meanwhile it is July and additionally to the milky way we had also the apperance of the comet Neowise. First time I tried to get it on Staffelberg, but was not too sucessful because of a lot of clouds that did not want to disappear. At least I got another picture of the night sky.

During the following week I did not get too much sleep, because the sky was clear often. First place I was trying out was the “Walberla” (Ehrenbürg) located at the beginning of Franconian Switzerland and easy to reach. Unfortunately a lot of other people had the same idea.
But at least I got my pictures.

Somewhat annoyed of that bunch of people running around with their flashlights and not paying attention on the photographers doing long time exposures I was turning around to have a try on the center of the milky way.
Neowise is (was) located beneath Ursa major which is not too far from the Pole Star at the northern sky. So the center of the milky way is more or less at the opposite direction.

Next time I was getting up in the middle of the night, in hope to find that place less crowded. But I was too late and it became light before I could get one proper shot.
OK. One hopefully clear night left, but the clouds were coming up already:

After getting a last picture of Neowise I decided spontanouly to give the lake Rudufer near Bad Staffelstein a try. But is was already to late and the milky way was hiding behind the clouds.