Chasing the Milky Way at Tacking Point Lighthouse

After a magical golden hour shoot at Trial Bay Gaol, I rolled into Port Macquarie just in time to check into the hotel, throw my bags down, and wolf down a quick dinner. There was no time to linger. The Milky Way was already on the rise, and I had a narrow window before the 81% moon climbed up at 9:30pm and washed the entire night sky in its silvery glow. Tacking Point Lighthouse had been on my shortlist for ages, and tonight was the night. I grabbed the camera bag, hopped back in the ute, and pointed it south toward the headland with that familiar mix of excitement and "please don't let the clouds roll in" anxiety every astrophotographer knows too well.

When I pulled into the carpark, the conditions were both stunning and brutal. The sky was crystal clear and already alive with stars, but the headland was getting absolutely pounded by wind ripping in off the Pacific. Long exposures and strong gusts are mortal enemies. Every frame I tried at first came back with that telltale streaky, soft-star look that means the tripod has been doing the cha-cha. After a couple of useless test shots I improvised, draping my jacket over the tripod and crouching beside it to act as a human windbreak. Not glamorous, definitely cold, but it worked. The legs steadied, the stars sharpened, and I could finally start composing properly with the lighthouse beam slicing across the frame and my ute parked dramatically in the foreground.

The trade-off, of course, was time. With the moon already creeping toward the horizon, I knew I'd only catch half of the Milky Way core before its light started flooding everything out and that's exactly how it played out. But honestly? I'm not mad about it. There's something special about this shot: the lighthouse beam cutting through the night, the galactic core arcing up over the dome, my truck quietly sitting beneath it all like a little reminder of the journey that got me here. Some nights you get the perfect Milky Way panorama. Other nights, the wind, the moon, and the headland conspire against you, and you walk away with few frame that tells the story of the chase instead. Tonight was definitely the second kind and I'll take it.

Here are the shots.