Plates
Orion Over the Farmstead Roof, 20 Seconds
Forty frames through a doorway of broken walls, and the one I kept.
Night-sky photographer
A monthly letter about photographing the night sky, one plate at a time
I’m Tendai. Each month I send one plate, a single night photograph from Zimbabwe with every setting and the story of making it, and I sell planning sheets, charts and two video courses.
Latest letters
Gear · 4 min read
The Lens That Smeared Every Star Corner
Why my fast lens went back in the bag, with the test frames side by side.
Planning · 7 min read
A Dune Ridge at Noon, Scouted for Midnight
How I read a ridgeline in daylight to place the Milky Way over it later.
Plates · 8 min read
The Core Standing Over the Thorn Tree
Three hours of waiting, one gust of wind, and a plate worth the cold.
Gear · 3 min read
A Red Headlamp and Nothing Else
Why every white light stays in the pickup, and which red lamp I trust.
Plates · 12 min read
Four Hundred Frames of One Windmill
A star-trail plate built from 400 thirty-second exposures and one long, still night.
About me
I shoot star trails, the Milky Way and dune country after dark, mostly within a few hours’ drive of home. I started with a secondhand camera and a borrowed tripod, and I wrote down every setting because I kept forgetting what had worked.
The letters are the pages of that notebook. Each one is a plate and a note on either kit or planning. I give the numbers plainly, including the frames that failed, so you can see how far a night really is from the picture.
