The great Orion Nebula and Running man above are a great target in our sky at the moment. And for anyone has been in the game for a few decades can recall, it’s been a terribly difficult object to photograph due to it’s high dynamic range. Fortunately every year, astro cameras get better and better so even lazy astrophotographers like myself can get a half decent image!
L-Enhance L-Agoon
A lit of bit of narrow band imaging with a colour camera. The L-Enhance filter rather cleverly still lets light through in the RGB band passes so that the image has a reasonably natural colour, yet does a fine job of bringing out the finer detail of the nebulosity.
Light Paint your Wagon
Or in this case a rusty piece of farm machinery! An enjoyable evening of bush camping under the stars near Inverell in New South Wales allowed me the chance to play with some new camera and light painting equipment. The sky was not completely obliging, but the end result and colours were very pleasant (as was dinner and a glass of red).
Clouds rolling in
What a lovely evening imaging the star forming region of Eta Carina. Its all been made more colorful by my discovering how to add color from other images. So the detail is all mine, but the colour is borrowed until I get some time to do my own 🙂
Zoom Zoom
It’s the moment an aircraft ‘enhances’ your astro-photograph!
I’m not normally a fan of photo-bombing, but I think this passing Jet made a very ordinary shot of the Galaxy M83 so much more interesting 🙂
Dawn Chorus
Comet Swan has brightened considerably as it approaches the sun and It’s tail is now stretching over 5 degrees in the pre-dawn sky to the East. I captured this mosaic this morning, but I fear its a farewell photo and the comet is heading rapidly towards the Northern Hemisphere and will no longer be visible to folk down under!
And then there were two
Say hello to Samford Valley Solar Observatory! It all came as a bit of a rush as a 3.5m Sirius dome cam available moments before the COVID-19 lockdown. A mad rush to NSW followed by some excellent local concrete work and a permanent place for the Solar scopes is born 🙂
Duck!
I recorded this close approach of asteroid 1999KW4 flying by the other night. I’ve finally worked out how to set my mount to track the asteroid itself and made this video as it glided safely past. BTW, its listed as a potentially hazardous object (PHO) because it can come within 7,500,000 km of earth at some time, which seels a long way, but is actually close enough to be of some concern should its orbit ever get changed!
Happy new year!
2019 got off to a nice start with a splendid crossing of the sun by the off planet proportion of the human race, the crew of the International Space Station. It was a nice close event too, and lovely conditions allowed for this lovely detailed image. Oh, and ahem, it got picked for Solar Activities Pic of the Day. Thanks Team 🙂
Back where it belongs :)
Ok, some others may disagree with that, but I’m pleased to announce that I was kindly awarded the Erwin Van Der Velden memorial trophy for best widefield Astro photo for the second time this Astrofest.
I’m very happy that this massive panorama of 42 shots, somewhat cut down, won. The outback town in deepest Qld that it was taken is called Boulia and is a most exceptionally remote place to visit!
