24 Jun 2018. Over the hill and far away ☁️ 🌞 Last Friday (22 June) started off wet and cloudy, but finished up dry and almost totally clear by the end of my working hours. The chance to shoot Milky Way photos was almost a certainty, but the late hour of moonset would mean not starting until at least an hour after midnight. Moonset was expected at 2:00am, so my “Phases of the Moon” app told me. I’d need some time to get in position and set up once I arrived, so I budgeted 30 minutes for that. It would take about an hour-and-a-half to drive from home to the headland at Gerroa, a coastal holiday town here in New South Wales, Australia. I’d have to leave no later than 12:30am, then. Wow, if I could get to bed at 10:00pm I could grab over two hours of sleep before setting off! 🌌 Yeah, right! Like a kid on Christmas Eve, there was no way I could sleep when I knew I would be going out a’nightscaping before long. After a few hours of doing anything but sleep, I made the drive and arrived while the moon was still low in the west, as planned. Apart from a few patches of cloud that wafted across at various times the sky was clear and the slight wind that was blowing kept the air clean and relatively dry for this time of year. 🌌 Apart from this and some other single-frame photos I ended up coming home with six panoramic images and a 300+ shot time-lapse sequence. I arrived home a little after 6:30am and crawled into bed shortly afterwards. It was at this point that I wondered if I’d stayed out just a little too long. This single-frame photo was shot with Canon EOS 6D camera, a Rokinon 24mm lens @ f/2.4, using a 13.0-second exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #gerroa
22 Jun 2018. A bit bent 🤪 You might think that Australian silo-builders from years gone by didn’t care about plumb-lines, levels or keeping things square. No, they didn’t drink on the job, either. The Milky Way doesn’t look bent in the night sky down here, nor does the ground curve as if the Earth’s diameter was only a few hundred kilometres, despite how everything looks in this photo. The warping of these lines is due to me trying to fit large structures into a small photograph. I used three overlapping frames, all shot with a wide-angle lens, to make up this final image. 🌌 The warping gives it a bit of an arty look, I think, and since I usually try to keep things looking “real’, I’m going to stay with the bent look, for a change. Not so much a village or town than it is a locality, Bolong, in the dairy region on the coastal plains on Australia’s east coast, is the home to these disused silos. The Milky Way is arching over the top of the concrete columns, and the planet Mars is glowing brightly off to the left. In between the silos, in the distance, is the truck that featured in a recent post. 📷 A stitched image created from three frames that were all shot with a Canon EOS 6D, Samyang 14mm XP lens @ f/2.8, 30-second exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #MilkyWayGrams
21 Jun 2018. Galactic poplars 🚜 Poplars aren’t native to Australia, yet a considerable percentage of country towns have at least one road that lined with these thin, skyward-stretching trees. Maybe there’s a rulebook that lists all of the things that rural localities must have to be a truly authentic country town. If so, poplars must be on the first page of that book. 🌌 These poplars are outside of Berry, a dairy town located on Australia’s southeast coast, about 1.5 hours’ drive from my home city of Sydney. It’s winter here now, so deciduous trees like this have shed their leaves until warmer months are upon us. Something else that happens in winter here in the southern half of our little planet is that the Milky Way’s core region is prominent in our night skies. I composed this photo so that the Milky Way’s core was showing in the large gap between the poplars, with the planet Mars glowing (at almost its brightest for the year) lower down the sky. Saturn is also visible here, showing as a bright white dot almost in a line between Mars and the tree that’s to the left of the gap. The lights of passing traffic on the recently-opened freeway did OK at illuminating the trees for me. 📷 Canon EOS 6D Mk II, Samyang 14mm @ f/2.8, 25-second exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #MilkyWayGrams
19 Jun 2018. Resting for the day ahead 🚜🚛 This planter and the truck that works with it seemed to be enjoying a night’s rest under the stars when I photographed them late last week. Apart from the country aroma, they appeared to have a great location for spending the night. 🌌 The Milky Way’s central band of stars, gas and dust stretched high overhead and the planet Mars, almost as brightest for 15 years, dominates an almost-empty area of the sky over the shed. The air was laden with moisture on this night, causing the starlight and background airglow to take on a purplish hue. The orange light of a nearby sodium lamp spilt onto the scene as well, making it difficult to get the overall colour balance of the shot looking realistic. 📷 This image is a single-frame photograph, captured with a Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, a Samyang 14mm XP lens @ f/2.8, using a 30-second exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #tractor #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #MilkyWayGrams
17 Jun 2018. Straight Outta Camera 🌌 Shot at close to 10 pm on Saturday night (16th June), this scene has the Milky Way’s central band and its galactic core positioned between two rows of trees as it climbed towards the zenith. The Milky Way here serves as a dividing line between the evergreen trees on the left and the leafless deciduous ones on the right. 🚙 This photo is very satisfying for me for two reasons. First, it was one of the few images I got on Saturday night after driving 130km to a shooting location that was clouded out. I waited around for an hour because the sky seemed to be clearing, but didn’t, so I headed back towards home, resigning myself to a fruitless night. This stop was a hunch-stop, if you will, and paid off with some OK photos. 😃 The second reason the image is satisfying is that this is a “sooc” shot, that is, straight-out-of-camera. The only editing I have done is to crop the photo down to fit on Instagram. I was ready to light-paint the trees and grass with a hand-held LED lamp when a car passed by on the road behind me and lit the whole area just the way I needed. 📷 Shot with Canon EOS 6D, Samyang 14mm @ f/2.8, 25 sec @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #MilkyWayGrams
16 Jun 2018. Lights in the dark water 🌌 The still & dark water in this narrow irrigation channel provided a natural mirror for me to photograph the reflected starlight from the Milky Way. I intentionally framed the shot so that you can’t see the Milky Way in the sky, so have to look down at the channel to see what’s up above. If you look carefully you can see the shape of the constellation Scorpius, the scorpion, near my logo at the bottom of the frame. ⛰ Mars had risen shortly before I took this photo and was low in the sky over the distant outline of Coolangatta Mountain. 🌌 Canon EOS 6D, Samyang 14mm @ f/2.8, 30 sec @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #reflection #MilkyWayChasers #MilkyWayGrams @southcoastregister
15 Jun 2018. Abandoned silos under an abundant sky 🌌 In Australia and other Southern Hemisphere countries, June = winter, which means longer nights with generally clearer skies than in the summer months. June also sees the Milky Way’s densest region, the galactic core, heading up towards the zenith earlier each night. You can see from my photo, taken at 9:30pm on June 14th, that the core is clear of the horizon now well before midnight. 🔭 The silos have been abandoned for several years, but in between my visits here on Monday night and Thursday night of this week some debris and dirt has been removed from one of them, so perhaps they might be recommissioned soon. I do hope a new roof is included in the renovation so that whatever is going to be stored here doesn’t get wet. Still, I don’t mind the holes in the roof as they let me see the sky and stars behind the structure. 🤷🏼‍♂️ The location of this shoot was Jennings Lane, a narrow but sealed rural roadway east of Nowra, on Australia’s southeast coast. I would have driven past the lane hundreds of times since I started holidaying further down the coast in 1976, but never noticed it until a few years back when I was looking for a spot alongside the nearby river. 📷 Even though I used a 14mm wide-angle lens here, the silos were too large to fit into a single shot. The way around that was to capture three overlapping photos and stitch them together in software. Each of the three images was shot with a Canon EOS 6D MkII camera, a Samyang 14mm XP lens @ f/2.8, using a 30-second exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • • #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #MilkyWayGrams @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #StargazingABC #silo
14 Jun 2018. Stealthy shooter 🤷🏼‍♂️ It’s almost certain that the family who lives in this house on Agars Lane, a narrow, tree-lined rural road near Berry, Australia, had no idea that there was a man with a camera sitting on the road outside around midnight on Monday. Well, I assume so, based on the lack of panicked sounds coming from the dwelling. 🌲🌌 Agars Lane has a few very photogenic dead trees that I sometime feature in my nightscapes and this was my first visit there this year to do just that. I figured that since I was stealthily loitering there, I would shoot some photos that included the house, and perhaps drop in a print to the family one day. 📷 Even though I managed to crop the shot to fit Instagram’s format, it’s another vertical panorama stitched together from eight overlapping images. The shooting data for each of those photos is: Canon EOS 6D, Samyang 14mm @ f/2.8, 25 sec exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #panorama #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #MilkyWayGrams
13 Jun 2018. The Milky Way at 8x3 🏝 I shot 24 single & overlapping photos to make up this vertical panorama of the Milky Way & its galactic core rising off the southeast coast of Australia. The location was Gerroa, a popular beachside village where my wife & her family used to holiday decades ago. 🌌 The orange starlike point in the sky at the bottom of the frame is the planet Mars, and you can see its reflection in the shallow water of the flooded rock shelf below. On the horizon, at the left, the orange lights of a fishing boat out at sea were glowing brightly. 📷 The panorama consists of eight rows of photos, with three shots per row. I photographed each frame with a Canon EOS 6D camera, a Canon 50mm STM lens @ f/2.8, an 8-second exposure @ ISO 12800. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #MilkyWayGrams
12 Jun 2018. See-through silo 🔭 Despite it being a weekday, the clear skies that presented themselves on Monday afternoon meant that the call of the night had built from a whisper to a roar by the time the sun had set. Yes, I’d be tired on Tuesday, but it had been three weeks since my last nightscape photography outing, and I needed to get back under the stars. 🌟 Finding dark skies always calls for a drive of at least 100km (60mi) for me. Getting to rural structures like windmills, dilapidated barns and silos requires travelling even further from the city. This disused and decaying silo near Nowra, Australia, is a site I visited about four years ago but not returned to since. On that first visit I shot photos of the silo from the road, which I did again last night, but this time I also played with some lighting setups both inside and outside the structure. This one of the two-towered structure had water in the bottom of it that I used to reflect and diffuse light from an LED lamp up onto the walls and the remnants of the roof. As you can see, it’s not so much a roof now as a roof-window, letting the stars of the Milky Way shine through. 📷 This single-frame image was shot with a Canon EOS 6D camera, a Samyang 14mm XP lens @ f/2.8, using a 20-second exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #MilkyWayGrams
08 Jun 2018. Camera vs eyes 🌑 You don’t have to look at this image for long to see how well lit up the foreground is. The fields are quite bright and very green, and there’s no mistaking the blue paint job on my car. When I was standing out on the road taking photos, though, things were very different. As I was avoiding using a light to see my way around, to protect my night vision, the only way I could see my car was from the blinking red light of its alarm. It wasn’t until I got home and looked at the photos I’d shot that I saw the cows laying out on the paddocks. Once or twice I stumbled down the little embankment next to the road because I just couldn’t see it! 🎥 OK, why does it all look so bright in the photo? To be able to capture all of the details in the sky, such as the stars and planets, and the dust and dark gas in the Milky Way in a photo, your camera needs to take a long exposure, e.g. at least 10-15 seconds. As well as a long exposure time you need to set your camera to a high level of light sensitivity, its “ISO” setting, such as 1600, 3200, 6400 or higher. The combination of these two settings not only lets you gather lots of light from the sky, it also results in you capturing lots of any other light that is around. Out of shot and to the left, about 30km away, is the industrial city of Wollongong, pumping out wasted artificial light all night long. That light pollution spilt onto the fields where I was, bouncing off of the green grass and onto my camera’s sensor. Although I was disappointed to have driven about 100km (60mi) from home to escape the lights of Sydney, only to be bathed in the same stuff here, the light pollution was useful. 📷 The photo is a stitched panorama that I created using the application Autopano Pro. I shot 67 single and overlapping images to make up the pano. Each of those was photographed with this equipment and settings: Canon EOS 6D camera, Rokinon 24mm lens @ f/2.4, 15-second exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #panorama @kolor
06 Jun 2018. From earth to sky and back again 🤔 Yesterday I posted a panorama that I had warped into an unusual horseshoe-shaped format. Today I bring you the straight up horizon-to-horizon vertical image that I derived it from. We Southern Hemisphere folk are blessed to have the Milky Way’s core region pass overhead during the night, for quite a few months of the year. When it does that it’s a great time for shooting a vertical pano, with the Milky Way seemingly standing on one end or the other. 🌌 You can shoot a panorama working up from the northeastern horizon to just overhead, or turn 180 degrees to face the southwest, the shoot up from there to a point just past directly overhead. Another option is the one I used, which is to start with your camera pointed in one of those directions and work your way right up and over to the opposite horizon. The resulting stitched panorama has a problem, though, with one end of the shot or the other being upside down. It’s a bit of an oddity, but I like to shoot these from time to time for something different. 😱 Depending on which way you’re looking at it, you’ll see the Large Magellanic Cloud hovering over the road that leads off to the southwest at the top of bottom of the scene. Halfway down (on the right or the left) is the planet Jupiter, showing as the brightest object in the sky. The unavoidable light pollution from the industrial city of Wollongong dominates the northeastern horizon. The grassy fields are lit up by that same light pollution, which for once is a useful thing. 📷 I shot each of the thirteen frames used that make up this panorama with a Canon EOS 6D, Rokinon 24mm @ f/2.4, 13-second exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #autopanopro #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #jupiter #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #Panorama #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #MilkyWayGrams
05 Jun 2018. Excuse me while I experiment 🤔 A lot of the images that I’ve posted recently have been panoramas made up of multiple overlapping images, joined together in a process known as “stitching”. For today’s post, I tried what’s known as a “Little Planet” projection in the stitching software. You’ve possibly seen this projection used to create photos where the land looks like a circular island that’s surrounded by sky in all directions. 🔭 Making a Little Planet photo requires shooting a full 360 degree’s worth of pictures, but I didn’t start out doing that with the batch of shots used in my image here. I took thirteen photos from the horizon in front of me, up over my head and back down to the horizon behind. When you use such shots with the Little Planet projection, you end up with this horseshoe shape. Although it’s an unusual look, you get the Milky Way arching from horizon to horizon, as often seen in classic nightscape panoramas. 🌌 On the left, you can see the bright, ugly and despised light-pollution from the city of Wollongong, Australia. A much fainter glow of light pollution is coming from the hills on the right, giving away the location of the town of Nowra, and the Milky Way looks like a starry bridge that links the two horizons. The planet Jupiter is shining so brightly at the top of the scene, and the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy snuck into the photo just over the distant road on the right-hand side. 📷 Each of the thirteen frames used to make this panorama was shot with Canon EOS 6D, Rokinon 24mm @ f/2.4, 13-second exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • • #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #MilkyWayGrams @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #panorama
03 Jun 2018. Gravitational anomaly? 🤷🏼‍♂️ In the 2014 movie, “Interstellar”, we were given several examples of how an extreme gravitational field might affect time and space in its vicinity. [Don’t bother with the Interstellar-hating comments. The movie took a lot of liberty with scientific theories but, hey, it could have been worse]. “Interstellar” came to mind after I noticed how the use of a wide-angle lens had made the trees at the bottom of my photo look like they’re bending in towards the massive amount of gravity present in the Milky Way’s galactic core. The fields and farmhouse also seemed reminiscent of that movie, although I was fortunate to not encounter any mega dust storms in the area around Jamberoo, New South Wales, Australia. 🌲 Now, why are there trees in the sky at the top of the scene? The photo is a vertical panorama that is made up by taking overlapping images and combining them in a process called “stitching”. I shot nine photos, starting with my camera pointing a little towards the ground and facing to the southwest. Between each shot I moved the camera upwards by 15 degrees, using a panoramic head to do so. Nine shots, each spaced fifteen degrees apart, gives a total sweep of 135 degrees of sky. If I’d shot another four photos I would have covered the view from horizon to horizon, and then some. Since I stopped short of doing that, I only got the tops of the trees that were behind me. 🔭 Jupiter, our solar system’s most massive planet, is off at the right-hand edge of the photo and Mars is on the left, not far out from the treetops there. The glow on the horizon at the bottom of the picture is from the city of Nowra and the white, washed-out area at the very top of the photo is from the industrial city of Wollongong, about 30km to the north. 📷 I used the following camera equipment and settings to take the nine shots that comprise the panorama: Canon EOS 6D camera, fitted with a Rokinon 24mm lens set to f/2.4, exposing each shot for 13 seconds at an ISO of 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_as
02 Jun 2018. There’s always “one more thing” 🤔 There is a lot of information to check so that things come together for a successful nightscape photography session. What is the weather forecast for the location where you’ll be shooting? How long will it take to get there, take the photos, get home, then get some sleep before work the next morning? What phase is the moon currently in tonight? What times of night will the Milky Way’s core region be in a position that’s good to photograph? Do you have all of your batteries charged, memory cards ready, gear all packed? Do you have the right clothing for all of the weather conditions that might occur at the location? Did you pack water and some snacks? Are you too tired to go out in the first place? 🤪 OK, you've covered all of those bases, and the conditions look good, so let’s head out and take some photographs. Cool! If I scramble out on that rock shelf and if the wind stays down, I can position myself so that the Milky Way will rise behind the headland and its light will reflect in that rock pool. Set up the tripod. Choose the right lens. Fit panoramic head to the tripod and attach the camera. Check exposure. Check focus. Shoot away. Excellent. All seems to be going well. Finish shooting the panorama, pack things back into your backpack, then head back towards the car. 🤦‍♂️ Hmm. My feet are wet. Oh, that’s right, I forgot to check the tide tables. Damn. One more thing to consider next time! 📷 This image is from a 42-frame panorama that I shot at Gerroa, Australia, in early May. I took each of the 42 single shots with settings as follows: Canon EOS 6D camera, with Canon 40mm STM lens set at f/2.8, using a 10-second exposure @ ISO 12800. The photos were stitched into one final image using the software Autopano Pro. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #panorama
01 Jun 2018. Something old, under something older 🤷🏼‍♂️ I don’t have any idea of how old this derelict flatbed cart is, but it looks like it’s been a very long time since it was moved under this tree and left to rot. It’s in a paddock just off the Princes Highway near the city of Nowra, Australia. From what a local recently told me, it’s only with the clearing of land from some roadworks that are underway that the tree and cart have become visible to passers-by. 🌌 Whatever its age, the cart is a baby compared to the ancient skies it was resting under on this night back in early May when I visited. The massive planet Jupiter was rising closer towards its highest point for the night, and the central core of our Milky Way galaxy was already dominating the eastern sky. You can see a band of fog, lower down in the sky, backlit by the Moon as it peeked over the horizon. 📷 This photo is a single image, taken with a Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, fitted with a Samyang 14mm XP lens set at f/2.8, using a 20-second exposure at ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #MilkyWayGrams
29 May 2018. Perhaps sir would look better in something blue? 🌈 The principles of physics and chemistry that make the daytime sky look blue have the same effect on the night’s sky, provided that one condition is satisfied. What might that condition be? The presence of moonlight! Blue skies are a result of sunlight getting scattered by gases and particles in the Earth’s atmosphere, with the shorter-wavelength blue hues getting spread around more than the other colours that make up the white light we receive from the Sun. Since moonlight is nothing more than light from the sun that is reflected back towards the earth by the Moon, the background tone of a moonlit sky is predominately blue. 🌘🌌 When I shot the images that make up this eight-frame vertical panorama, the Moon was about half an hour from setting. Even with the Moon very low in the western sky, and at only 30% illuminated, there was plenty of that reflected sunlight available to give an overall blue tone to my photo. You can see the blue reflected in the pools of water on the rock shelf here at Gerroa, on the southeast coast of New South Wales, Australia. Fortunately, though, there wasn’t so much moonlight that the beautiful band of the Milky Way was washed out. After the setting of the moon, the planet Jupiter–the third-brightest object visible in the sky at night–dominated the heavens even more than you see here in the photo. 📷 My vertical panorama was stitched together from eight overlapping images, each of which was photographed with a Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, a Rokinon 24mm lens @ f/2.4, with a 13-second exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #MilkyWayGrams @southcoastregister @igersillawarra
27 May 2018. Lines and lights 🌌📐 I did my best to line up the dominant elements of this photo in a zig-zag shape that starts at the top-right of the frame with the bright stars Beta and Alpha Centauri. Moving down and to the left is the thick line of stars and interstellar dust and gas of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. This line almost intersects with the horizon, out over the Tasman Sea, off the east coast of Australia. Following that barrier between sky and sea across to the right-hand side, a new sight-line begins, with the rock shelf at Black Head, Gerroa, marking the edge of the water. 🌟🌌 The planet Mars is glowing not far above the horizon in the middle of the scene, with its bright orange signature colour reflected across the water. Jupiter stakes its claim as the brightest object in my photo, which is proper for the most massive planet in our solar system. In a line between these two and about one-quarter of that distance up from Mars, the planet Saturn is almost washed out by the light from our galaxy’s core region. 📷 I ended up with four similar shots at this location but chose this one to post because I love the misty effect that the time-exposure gives to the water’s edge and the scattered reflection of Mars on the wet rocks. Shot with a Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, a Samyang 14mm XP lens @ f/2.4, using a 30-second exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #Jupiter #MilkyWayChasers #planets
24 May 2018. Sky and sea 👌🏻🌌 I can think of few more majestic sights than seeing the Milky Way climbing elegantly, gracefully and purposefully over the surging sea. The saying goes that time and tide wait for no-one. The nightly passage of the stars overhead waits not, either. That is one reason I think I will not ever tire of looking up to see this free yet fabulous, simple yet sublime display of light and movement. The show goes on even if nobody is watching, but who wants to waste a so show special? 👍 This single-frame photograph was shot from under the cliffs of Black Head, in Gerroa, New South Wales, Australia. I used a Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, a Samyang 14mm XP lens @ f/2.8, with an exposure time of 25 seconds @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #MilkyWayGrams @abcopen @igersillawarra
23 May 2018. Small telescope. Huge record attempt! 🌟 For three nights this week Australia’s national public broadcaster, the ABC, has been hosting the “Stargazing Live 2018” event. The anchor point each night is a live-to-air TV show, co-hosted by British astrophysicist Professor Brian Cox. Tonight (Wed 23rd May) was the second night, and it included a vast citizen science exercise, trying to break the Guinness World Record for the most people stargazing across multiple venues simultaneously. The previous record was set in Australia in 2015, with 7960 people viewing the sky across 37 locations. 🌗 We won’t have the results until tomorrow, but with more than 200 star-parties registered before the start time, it seems a sure bet that the old record will tumble. The Guinness rules for this record mandate that the count can only include people who viewed the moon through a telescope or binoculars continuously for ten minutes. To make that happen the organisers got a hold of 30,000 telescopes like the one in the photo, available for purchase at just $7.15, which has to be one of the best science bargains ever. 🔭 The star-party I went to was hosted at an observatory that’s about a fifteen-minute drive from my home. This observatory was the first place that I ever looked at the night sky through a telescope, when I was ten years old. That’s nearly forty-four years ago now! It was cool seeing kids of that age (and younger) out there tonight, looking at the moon through their telescopes. I tried to capture some of the buzz of the event for you with my photo. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #moon #lunar #moon_awards @moon_awards #stargazinglive2018 #stargazinglive @abcopen