MILKY WAY AND LA PALMA PHOTOGRAPHY TOUR
Discover the magic of the night sky in La Palma, a designated Starlight Reserve within the Canary Islands. Renowned as the best place in Europe for photographing the Milky Way in crystal clear skies, the island has superb mountain viewpoints and dramatic foregrounds. With expert tuition from two experienced leaders, you will have the opportunity to capture the galactic core high above the horizon, the whole arch of the Milky Way across the sky and learn how to get the most out of your images with effective processing.
Discover the magic of the night sky on our new landscape astrophotography tour in La Palma, a breathtaking island renowned as a designated Starlight Reserve.
• Five nights photographing the Milky Way at probably the best location in Europe.
• Opportunity to capture a panorama showing the Milky Way arching across the sky.
• Two expert leaders to enable you to get the most from your time under the stars and when processing your images.
• En-suite hotel accommodation, breakfast, evening meals and transport on La Palma all included.
With little humidity, low cloud cover, minimal light pollution and a commitment to preserving its dark sky status, La Palma has some of the most dazzling skies in Europe. Because of this, the island is home to the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, the second largest astronomical observatory in the Northern Hemisphere. This unique combination of factors makes La Palma an ideal location for capturing stunning celestial images; truly an astrophoto-grapher’s dream. Thanks to the southerly latitude of La Palma (29 deg N), the Milky Way core rises much higher in the sky than in Britain and there are seven hours of darkness in midsummer to photograph it. We will explore a diverse range of fantastic foregrounds and witness the Milky Way rise in its full splendour, with the galactic core perfectly positioned in the night sky.
A particular aim of this tour is enabling you to capture the whole arch of the Milky Way from north to south as it rises across the eastern half of the sky. This requires stitching together a wide panorama of overlapping, stacked images, so it is technically more complex and cannot be achieved on most group tours. For this purpose our group will be divided each night, with two or three participants doing the arch with one leader whilst the other four or five concentrate on the Milky Way core, star trails and other night sky phenomena with the other leader. Weather permitting, there will be an opportunity for all participants to capture a panorama of the Milky Way arch if they would like to.
Complete with daily classroom sessions, this tour will provide you with everything you will need to capture and process exceptional images of the beautiful night sky.
This tour will take place from 7 to 12 June 2026 when the Moon is out of the evening sky. This is the ideal time of year, with the Milky Way core visible throughout seven hours of astronomical darkness each night. We expect to be out from roughly 6.30pm to 4am each night, then returning to our hotel to sleep until 10am. This schedule will enable us to capture sunset in the mountains and some of the spectacular endemic flora of La Palma, before moving on to our astrophotography viewpoints as darkness falls.
Our indoor tutorials will cover image processing, giving a practical demonstration of how to get the best out of the images captured on the course. Stacking Milky Way images will be covered in detail. It is recommended to bring your own laptop with Lightroom and Photoshop loaded in order to do your own processing during the course, with expert guidance. As well as the Milky Way, we will cover topics such as star trails, selecting and illuminating foregrounds, exposure at night, focusing at night and stacking images to maximise detail and reduce noise. We will present comprehensive tuition on capturing the Milky Way arch, which will equip you both for this tour and other locations you may visit in future. Our small group to leader ratio will enable a more personalised approach to post-processing, so we can assist you in getting the best out of your images with one to two or one to three guidance in the classroom.
Most of our astrophotography will be done in the outstanding Caldera de Taburiente National Park, at elevations around 2,400m above sea level. This is the location of several major international astronomical observatories, which enjoy around 300 cloud free nights per year. To give you the best possible opportunities, we plan to drive to this area on all five nights of the tour. We can expect around 75% of nights to be clear in June, plus partly clear skies on another 15%. It is therefore likely that all or most nights on the tour will be clear, though this cannot be guaranteed. In the event of cloudy nights we will return at midnight to the hotel to sleep and instead photograph spectacular coastal locations around La Palma the following day.
An interesting feature of the night-time climate is the frequency of temperature inversions trapping cloud near sea level, whilst high elevations remain clear. These cloud inversions create spectacular foregrounds viewed from above. Other intriguing foregrounds include the observatories, telescopes, reflections, flowering tajinastes (giant bugloss) and even your tour leaders!
Accommodation and meals will be in spacious, well-appointed en suite rooms with kitchenette at Hacienda San Jorge. The hotel has a beautiful garden, large pool and is located next to a quiet beach, just five minutes’ drive from the airport. Breakfast and evening meals are included in the tour.
What Will You Need?
• Digital single lens reflex camera or mirrorless camera capable of producing acceptable quality images at ISO 3200 or 6400 (a full-frame camera is recommended; a micro 4/3 camera is not recommended).
• Wide angle lens (ideally 14 to 16mm minimum focal length) with a maximum aperture of at least F/2.8 (ideally F/2) for astrophotography.
• Other lenses ranging from wide angle (ideally 16mm on full frame) to short telephoto (200mm+) for day-time and sunset photography.
• Sturdy tripod (essential).
• Lockable remote cable release.
• Neutral density filters (for daytime photography).
• Head torch and hand torch.
• Warm clothes and sturdy hiking boots with good grip.
You will need to be familiar with operating your camera in manual exposure and bulb modes at night. Previous experience of night sky photography is recommended for attendees on this workshop.
In order to get the most from this workshop, you should be fit enough to walk up to several miles in the dark on a combination of roads and mountain footpaths to reach shooting positions. You need to be comfortable with a photography schedule that lasts from roughly 6.30pm to 4am each night. Please note that we will be photographing at high elevation and, although close to midsummer at a subtropical latitude, it is likely to be cold at night and sometimes windy. All the shooting locations we will take you to have been thoroughly reconnoitred by us but there may be steep drops adjacent, so it is essential that you follow the guidance of your leaders and do not wander off on your own. Remember that you are personally responsible for your own safety. In Caldera de Taburiente National Park, once torches are turned off for astrophotography, it really is dark!
Group Size: Maximum of seven participants, with two leaders highly experienced in astrophotography: Robert Harvey and Abby Moule.
Recommended photographic equipment:
Digital single lens reflex or mirrorless camera capable of producing acceptable quality images at ISO 3200 or 6400
Wide angle lens (in the range 14 to 24mm focal length) with a maximum aperture of at least F/2 or F/2.8 for astrophotography
Other lenses ranging from wide angle (ideally 16mm on full frame) to short telephoto (200mm+) for day-time photography
Sturdy tripod (essential)
Lockable remote cable release
Head torch and hand torch
Warm clothes and sturdy walking boots with good grip (essential)
Dates: 7 to 12 June 2026
Start at 1pm on Day 1, Finish at midday on Day 6
Six day tour, cost £2,300 (double/twin occupancy). Single supplement £230. Please register interest now to receive details as soon as the tour is finalised (July 2025). Those who register interest will get the first opportunity to book.
Included: Accommodation, breakfast (10.15am) and evening meal (6pm), travel from La Palma airport, guiding and comprehensive tuition.
Excluded: Lunches (if required), drinks, travel to and from La Palma.