FOR most it’s the ambient Christmas market or the archaic architecture that draws people to Winchester.

But for one Hampshire lad it’s the skies, and for him, there’s no better than the Wintonian stars.

28-year-old Elliott Godwin, from Winchester Road in Southampton, has spent the last five years searching for the perfect picture and he might just have found it with these pictures taken at the Winchester Science Centre last week (November 30).

“The aspect that makes night photography interesting to me is that cameras are so smart now that taking a decent picture during the day is easy,” he said. “But if you're willing to come out of your comfort zone, switch the camera to manual, you can get some fantastic shots that even your eyes can't see.”

The freelance photographer was taken to the centre as a treat for his birthday by his girlfriend, Natalie Burnage, who also dabbles in a spot of photography once in while.

He said: “There's something fantastic about seeing a pitch black sky with maybe 1,000 stars visible to your eyes and then taking a long exposure to see tens of thousands of stars along with the Milky Way if you're lucky.

“I'd recommend anybody with a manual setting camera to give it a go. Head out to the darkness where there is no light pollution, set your camera on a tripod, set the focus to infinity, the aperture wide open, the ISO as high as it will go and play around with long exposures of maybe 15-30 seconds.”