This weekend (Friday 16th to Tuesday 20th November) I was aboard the Cunard liner Queen Mary 2 for a short cruise to the Channel Islands, France and Belgium. The weather, as has been the norm during 2012, was disgusting but the clouds parted one night and the stars appeared.

I decided to experiment and try to get a shot of Orion with the ship’s forward superstructure and bridge in the foreground. One shot came out and I am quite pleased with it, considering that I was using no tripod, no cable release and I was leaning the camera on one of the spare propeller blades which are kept on the public area of the ship’s bow. Oh and I’d had four pints of Stella Artois by this time, so it’s a miracle even one photo came out (cocktails came later!).