Workshop #1: Introduction to Astrophotography with Davy Patton
Sept. 11th @ 7:30PM, Ballycroy Visitor Centre, Please Book at BallycroyVisitorCentre@npws.gov.ie
Astrophotography Workshop Series in the Mayo Dark Sky Park, Wild Nephin National Park – Páirc Náisiúnta Néifinne Fiáine
This Fall 
, join us for a series of Astrophotography Workshops for the novice astrophotographer 
in Mayo Dark Sky Park! A prominent Astrophotographer will lead each workshop, providing a set of top tips for photographing Mayo’s dark skies.
This workshop will cover the basics of landscape astrophotography, covering Milky Way and Aurora photography, and outlining the techniques involved – equipment (including cameras, lenses and star trackers
), along with planning and editing images and some of the software used. If weather permits, the talk will be followed by a short practical session in the grounds of the Ballycroy Visitor Centre. Anyone attending can bring their own gear – ideally a digital camera capable of shooting manually and a wide angle lens f2.8 or better – along with a tripod – but bring what you have and we’ll try it!
David lives in Rathcroghan in Co. Roscommon, an area rich in history and mythology. This Landscape is rich in monuments and Archaeology has been a source of inspiration for David for close on 30 years.
An interest in Astrophotography came about almost by accident with an article on an upcoming Supermoon. This led to planning a shot of the moon rising over a local standing stone. The phone app used to plan this shot also showed position of the Milky Way over the landscape, and that chance event led to David learning the basics of astrophotography and taking his first shots of the Milky Way over Rathcroghan in 2022. Since then, David was shortlisted in the “Reach for the Stars” Astrophotography competition in 2023 and a runner up in 2024 and held his first solo exhibition of astrophotography “Rathcroghan by Night” as part of Astronomy week 2024.
David is a regular visitor to the Dark skies of Co.Mayo, shooting Astrophotography at Mayo Dark Sky Park sites (Letterkeen, Ballycroy and the Cleggan coastal trail), as well as the dark skies over Achill Island.