In a lovely lazy Sunday, so it seems only right to photograph the easiest celestial target in the sky! Taken with a Lunt 50mm Double stacked solar telescope which sits on top of my main observatory telescope for days such as today 🙂
It’s a long way to Winton!
Out intrepid team of Astronomers recently travelled to the Queensland Outback to look for evidence that the circular feature that I identified in 2013 using Google Earth is a meteorite impact site and not just a hole in the ground!
That’s Pranvera Hyseni, Rob Black and myself weeding out meteor-rights from Meteor-wrongs over lunch.
So is it or isn’t it? Well we think it is, but it’s not as easy as that – to be formally recognised there needs to be a published peer reviewed scientific paper confirming it and that isn’t going to happen in a hurry! So in the mean time here is my write up in progress: http://shadowchaser.com.au/crater-bradshaw/
Mudjimba Star Trails
A star trails image, I just can’t do enough of them, but this time using a telephoto lens at 150mm.
I’d been sat on the beach looking at the island a kilometre out and decided it may be nice to frame it up and see if I could capture the stars emerging from atmospheric extinction. When I went back on the beach later that evening, there was a fair bit of cloud about and I thought that I would get nothing of merit. I grabbed 40 mins of data anyway (There are a lot worse things to do that to lay on a beach watching the stars after all).
What came out was this shot. I don’t know why, but it’s my favourite to date – just something about the clouds and the merged wave tops being in harmony, and where did that lilac sky come from?! Other than stacking, and some gentle adjustments, it’s how it came off the camera. 
Geo-Flasher!
For my astro-geek friends, how about something a little closer to home! Here are some of the many objects that the human race has littered our orbit with. They put on a spectacular show for me tonight whilst I was out observing 🙂
Happy Xmas 2015
How much astronomy can you get in a single photo!
Here we see a full moon rising on Christmas day, surrounded by anti-crepuscular sun rays and on the belt of Venus (The Earth’s rising shadow)
Bye Bye Scorpius
It’s been a great season, see you again next year!
Venus makes a splash
In a magical moment looking across Tin Can Bay from Rainbow Beach, Venus shines brightly over the waters surrounded by the faint glow of zodiacal light. It was so pretty I made a video too!
Monto Star Trails
Such a fantastic dark sky location in rural Queensland. Monto is a small but very friendly bush community and a delightful place to spend a few days. This star trails shot was taken looking back towards the campsite on the edge of town. How dark is that!!!
Conjunction 2
Up close and personal this time. It’s actually three photos blended together to see Venus, Jupiter and it’s moons together at the correct exposure. A lovely naked eye treat, I hope you managed to spot them hanging out in the West together!
Conjunction!
A very pretty arrangement of the Moon, Venus and Jupiter in the night sky tonight, and with it some mightily cold air too – Wrap up warm astronomers!
