Capture the sky you've never seen.
Astrophotography
The Sahara offers some of the darkest skies on earth. Five to eight days of night photography, star mapping, and celestial observation in a landscape where the Milky Way touches the dunes.
The experience
Astrophotography
An immersive programme for photographers, astronomers, and anyone drawn to the night sky. Guided night shoots across Erg Chigaga's dune systems. Milky Way photography. Star trail techniques. Timelapse workshops. Daytime sessions on post-processing, composition, and the science of light. Led by professional astrophotographers through our studio partners. No light pollution. No distractions. Just the deepest sky you have ever seen.
Duration
8 days, 7 nights
Group size
8–14 guests
Format
Co-branded with partner studio
What to expect
Astrophotography · 8 days
Nightly guided photography sessions (2-4 hours). Daytime editing and technique workshops. Equipment guidance (bring your own or borrow). Star mapping and celestial navigation. Works for beginners and advanced photographers alike.
How a night-shooting week is built
The programme inverts: the working hours are between ten at night and three in the morning.
01
The moon decides the week
Dates are chosen around the new moon, because a half moon is a floodlight on an erg with no other light in it. The calendar is set by the lunar cycle before anything else is booked.
02
Afternoon is for technique
Sensor settings, focus at infinity, stacking, star trackers. Every session is planned in daylight so that nobody is reading a manual at midnight with a head torch on.
03
Two to four hours of shooting a night
Guided, with a composition in mind rather than a camera pointed upward. Milky Way season runs roughly March to October in the northern hemisphere, and the core sits low and clear from the south of Morocco.
04
Editing in the morning, sleeping after
Review together before lunch, then the day is free. A week of night shooting without a protected sleep window produces tired photographs.
Dark sky, and what it actually requires
A dark sky is not only an absence of towns. It is altitude, dry air and a horizon with nothing on it.
Erg Chigaga
Sixty kilometres of piste past the last tarmac at M'Hamid, with our own camp in the dunes. No settlement, no road lighting, and a clean horizon in every direction. This is the darkest ground we work on.
Agafay and the Marrakech side
Thirty minutes from the city, so the glow is real on the northern horizon but the logistics are simple. It is the right choice for a short format or a first night before going south.
High Atlas
Altitude cuts the atmosphere you are shooting through, and the cedar line gives foreground that the desert cannot. Colder, and clear skies are less reliable than in the south.
Astrophotography in Morocco, answered
- What camera do I need?
- Anything with manual mode and a lens that opens to f/2.8 or wider. A tripod is essential. We can lend trackers and a few fast lenses, but they are limited, so tell us at booking rather than on arrival.
- Is it suitable for a beginner?
- Yes. The afternoon workshops start at exposure triangle and focus, and the guide sets up alongside you at night. Beginners leave with usable Milky Way frames; experienced shooters work on stacking, panoramas and star trails.
- When is the best time of year?
- The Milky Way core is visible from roughly March to October, and the desert is comfortable from October to April. The overlap, March to May and late September to October, is when we run these weeks.
- How cold does the desert get at night?
- Below ten degrees from November to February, and close to zero before dawn in the dunes. You will be standing still for hours, so the packing list we send is not decorative.
From the journal
5 min
A Photographer's Guide to the Saharan Night Sky
Zero light pollution. Bortle Class 1 darkness. The Sahara is one of the last places on earth where you can photograph the Milky Way with the naked eye as witness.
4 min
The Milky Way Over Erg Chigaga: Shooting the Deepest Sky on Earth
At 3am in the Sahara, the galaxy is so bright it casts shadows on the dunes. A technical and emotional account of capturing the night sky at Erg Chigaga.
4 min
The Science of Disconnection: Why 8 Days Changes Your Biology
Cortisol drops by day three. Melatonin production increases by day five. By day seven, your nervous system has fundamentally recalibrated.
Before the dates exist
Tell us when. We will tell you where.
We open a small number of weeks each season. Choose the window you have in mind and what you come for, and you will hear about those dates before they are published.
Which window?
What you come for