13 Aug 2018. The Zodiacal Light is back, while Venus nearly gets zapped 😱 It’s one of the times of the year when the Zodiacal Light can be seen prominently again. Caused by sunlight being scattered and reflected by dust particles in the plane of our solar system, the Zodiacal Light is also known as the “false dawn” because of how bright it can appear in the morning sky. It is most visible from a month before, to a month after the equinoxes. 🌟💫🛰 In my photo today the Zodiacal Light is a faint white band of light between Venus (just on the horizon) and the planet Jupiter, at the top of the image. In the coming few weeks it will brighten and be far more prominent. During the months of (roughly) August, September and October you can see the Zodiacal Light in the eastern sky before sunrise if you live in the Northern Hemisphere. Southern Hemisphere-dwellers like me can see it in the west after sunset. Around the March equinox, you should look to the western horizon after sunset in the Northern Hemisphere, and to the east before sunrise in the Southern. 🔭 Venus was only minutes from setting behind the hills in the distance when I took this photo. You can see its bright and diffused light reflected by the water around the reed-beds in the foreground. The white streak of light that looks like a laser beam zapping towards Venus is the Chinese spacecraft SJ 16-02 (Shijian-16), a military/intelligence satellite that was launched by China in June of 2016. 📷 Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, Rokinon 24mm lens @ f/2.4, 15-second exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 @photographerfocus #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 #venus #jupiter #satellite #reflection
11 Aug 2018. Another dam fine view 📆 About three weeks back I posted a vertical panorama from this location, the Bamarang Dam, located on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia. I shot today’s image on the same night as that one, arriving at the dam’s carpark a little before the orientation of the sky had the Milky Way seemingly standing on one end. 🌟 💫 In the earlier image, the wind was blowing across the water’s surface, diffusing and obliterating the reflections of stars that I was hoping to get. Luckily the wind abated enough for me to get some reflections of stars in the bottom-right of this pano, although they’re still not sharp. I actually got the stars of the Southern Cross reflected, and their colours show up much more prominently on the water’s surface than they do in the sky. 🌌🔭 Look how much detail there is in the galactic core, including the “dancing horse” or “dark horse” nebula, as well as other dust lanes around the galactic centre. You can see the Large and Small Magellanic Cloud galaxies at the lower left, above the bright glow from the lights of the nearby HMAS Albatross naval aviation base. Once again Mars is a prominent feature, and Jupiter’s white light is disappearing into the trees about one third down on the right. 📷 A total of nine overlapping images were used to create this image, each of which I shot with a Canon EOS 6D camera, fitted with a Samyang 14mm XP lens set at f/2.8. The exposure time for each frame was 25 seconds, with an ISO setting of 6400. I processed the panorama using the stitching software Autopano Pro. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 @photographerfocus #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 @canonaustralia @southcoastregister
10 Aug 2018. M&M&M. With no added manipulation 🔭 There’s no milky chocolate wrapped in a candy shell in this photo, but three things are starting with “M”. Mars, the  Milky Way and a bright meteor. 🛰 Mars, Elon Musk’s favourite planet and the subject of many science fiction books and films, is the jewel in the crown in this scene that I photographed last Sunday night. I framed the image to place the famed planet at the top and centre of the composition. 🌌 The next “M”, the Milky Way, is pretty much synonymous with my night photography. I still feel my mouth drop open and hear the word “wow” issuing from it when I see the preview images show up on my camera’s screen, after capturing another shot of the central region of our home galaxy. Its conglomeration of hundreds of billions of stars; interstellar gas clouds, and dark dust lanes are a wonder to see and photograph. Midway down the photo and on the left-hand side you can see the bright streak of a meteor that flashed across this part of the sky while the camera’s shutter was open. Call it providence, or serendipity, or  happenstance, but me taking this photo in time for the meteor to burn and die was unplanned. 📷 What does the “no added manipulation” mean? Apart from cropping the photo to fit Instagram, I made no edits at all. No brightness, contrast, saturation, clarity, noise reduction nor shadows boost setting was changed from how the photo came out of the camera. I used a Canon EOS 6D camera, fitted with a Samyang 14mm XP lens @ f/2.8, using a 25-second exposure @ ISO 6400 to shoot the image. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 @photographerfocus #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #meteor #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 #Mars
09 Aug 2018. Bend and stretch, reach for the stars 📆 The end of Milky Way season for 2018 is still a few months away for us here in the Southern Hemisphere, but I am starting to fret about how many more chances I’ll get to photograph my favourite part of the night sky. When I shot this scene at 9:30 pm last Saturday night, the Milky Way’s core had passed overhead, and the rich band of stars, dust and gas that gives our home galaxy its name was now into the western half of the sky. In a month’s time, the stars will be in this position at 7:30 pm. With Daylight Saving cutting in during the first weekend of October, the same view will occur at 6:30 pm but the sun won’t have set yet. Time marches on too quickly! 🌲🌌🌲 I’ve made use of poplars to frame the Milky Way in several shots over the past four years, and I continue to find them useful for that. The warped perspective from using a wide-angle lens seems to be bending the trees towards the mass of light and gravitational attraction present in the galactic core. The location, southwest of Nowra, Australia, was another gem with clear skies, no wind and only three cars passing me in the two hours that I was lurking in the dark with my camera. I just managed to sneak Jupiter into the right-hand edge of the shot, but Mars and its blazing orange light dominate the relatively empty section of sky at the top left. This shot doesn’t quite nail the alignment I was after, and I didn’t manage to get the lighting even across all of the poplars, so I hope you find beauty and interest in it. 📷 For each of the five photos in this vertical panorama I used the following: Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, Samyang 14mm XP lens @ f/2.8, 25-second exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 @photographerfocus #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #Poplars @southcoastregister
07 Aug 2018. Lights over a once-busy road 🚚🚛🚜🚙🚒🚑🚎 Until early in 2017 this was one of the busiest stretches of road in the south coast region of New South Wales, my home state in Australia. The completion of a new four-lane divided carriageway nearby has now left this piece of asphalt to serve as a local road for the nearby farms and small villages. The great thing about that for me last Saturday night was that in the ninety minutes that I was there taking nightscape photos, only one car drove through the location. Any danger from standing or kneeling in the middle of the road to line up my tripod and camera was almost non-existent. 🌌 Here, we’re looking due southwest, with the lights of the towns of Berry and Nowra in the distance. The Milky Way’s galactic core had long-since passed the zenith and was slowing descending when I shot this, but Mars was still high up in the just-post-midnight sky. At the lower left, you can see streaks of white from the headlights of vehicles zipping along the new roadway. 📷 Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, Samyang 14mm XP lens @ f/2.8, 20-second exposure @ ISO 6400. I lit the road and trees with a hand-held TriStar2 63-LED light, fitted with a 3200K warm filter. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 @photographerfocus #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 #Nowra #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #Mars
06 Aug 2018. Meteor magic 💫 In around a week’s time the peak of the Perseids meteor shower will occur. The good news this year is that the peak coincides with the New Moon, so there won’t be bright moonlight to obscure the fainter flashes of light. The bad news for me is that the shower is a non-event in my part of Australia due to the shower’s radiant point not rising over my northern horizon. 🌌💫🌌 There are other showers over the next few months that I should be able to see. In the meantime I have to settle for the random meteors that flash through the night while my camera’s shutter happens to be open. The bright streak in this photo was one of those moments, shot in the early hours of last Sunday, 5th August. The Milky Way is, of course, the dominant feature in the scene, with Jupiter glowing brightly not far over the southwestern horizon. I had no way to light the fields, so had to rely on my camera’s light sensitivity and the overuse of the “Shadows” tool in Lightroom. 📷 I captured this image at Broughton Village, north of Berry, New South Wales, Australia. The gear and settings were: Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, Samyang 14mm XP lens @ f/2.8, 25-second exposure @ ISO 6400. It’s actually two overlapping shots stitched together, so that I could get the Milky Way and the foreground into the same scene. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 @photographerfocus #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 #jupiter #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #Meteor
05 Aug 2018. Mars and the Milky Way in the moonlight 🌟🌌🌙 Despite Jupiter being known as the “king of the planets”, it’s Mars that is ruling over the skies at night during August. Rising before the Sun has set, and making its way from east to west throughout the night, the red planet sets close to sunrise in my part of the world. There’s no missing Mars overhead at night right now, and it’s definitely unmissable in my photo from last night. 🌌 The Milky Way’s cloudy strip is high overhead when darkness falls then starts to descend towards the western horizon an hour or so before sunrise. You can see its central “core” region, with its concentration of billions of stars, clouds of gas and wisps of dust stretching across the photo and continuing behind the tree. The richness of the Milky Way’s colours and detail here isn’t what you’re used to seeing in my photos. About ten minutes before I shot this the Moon had risen over the hill directly behind me, and was bright enough to wash out some of the details in the sky as well as lighting up the foreground in the distance. It was neat watching the light on the fields come closer to me as the moon got higher in the sky. 📷 Canon EOS 6D, Samyang 14mm @ f/3.2, 20 sec @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 @photographerfocus #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
02 Aug 2018. On a clear night you can see forever 💨 The strong wind that was blowing from the northwest when I shot this scene back on July 17 was simultaneously a blessing and a curse. A blessing because wind coming from that direction, at least where I hang out, is dry and makes the air clear. Dry air means there’s little airborne moisture to steal light and colour from the photons streaming towards the Earth from the stars and planets, glowing gas and myriad nebulae out in space beyond our little third rock from the Sun. The downside to the wind–the curse, if you will–was that the trees were frantically moving at the prompting of that fast-moving dry air. 🌲 Jupiter was on its way to setting, now low enough in the western sky to be dipping below the treetops and therefore making it difficult for me to line up my shot so that I didn’t miss photographing the mighty planet. One gust of wind, while the shutter was open, would mean trying again and making the late night even later. Mars was easier to deal with, being in a part of the sky that wasn’t hidden from view and so making its bright orange glow unmissable. The Milky Way’s galactic core region almost looks like it’s being blown across the sky, with its wispy dust-lanes and streams of dark gas seemingly moving at the whim of a higher force. I took the shots that make up this image at around 11:30, before facing the two-hour drive home to Sydney. Yes, another late night for Dougie. 📷 This photo is a cropped-down version of a seven-image vertical panorama. The seven images were stitched together using the software Autopano Pro. The shooting info for each of those seven frames is as follows: Canon EOS 6D camera, Rokinon 24mm lens @ f/2.4, 15-second exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 @photographerfocus #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 #planets
01 Aug 2018. Pillar of dust and light 🌌 True to my promise, I’m done with posting photos from last Saturday’s lunar eclipse and back to the starry skies of the Southern Hemisphere, featuring the galactic core of the Milky Way. There are several things going on in this image, with the central band and core region of the Milky Way standing out, and standing up, right down the centre of the photo. You can see the light from the hundreds of billions of stars that make up our galaxy, some of which are masked by the enormous dust lanes that stretch through the spiral arms of our “island universe”, as galaxies used to be called. 🔭 Down at the left, and not too far above the trees, are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. These are dwarf galaxies that are travelling through space with the Milky Way, kind of likes those folk who hover around politicians when there’s a photo or TV opportunity. Higher up but still on the left-hand side of the frame is the hot topic in astronomy right now, the planet Mars. Almost as bright as Mars, but definitely not the same orange-red colour, you can see our solar system’s most massive planet, Jupiter. As well as being the biggest planet in our system Jupiter also holds the record for the number of moons that orbit it. The count is currently 79. Greedy? 📷 I created this final image from eight overlapping single frames, each of which I captured with the following equipment and settings: Canon EOS 6D camera, Samyang 14mm XP lens (manual focus) @ f/2.4, 25-second exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 @photographerfocus #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
30 Jul 2018. Last one. I promise! 👍 Shots like this of the orange-red moon against a black sky are probably the most common type of photo I’ve seen of total lunar eclipse events. My preference is to capture images that include a terrestrial scene in them as well, like the ones I’ve posted over the past couple of days. Still, I find something engaging and intriguing about them and so chose one for my final photo from last Saturday’s overhead light show. 🌈 🌅 In the same way that the bending (refracting) of light at sunrise and sunset gives the sky a red colour, sunlight refracted by the Earth’s atmosphere tints the Moon with this copper-coloured visage during a lunar eclipse’s “totality” phase. 📷 Captured with a Canon EOS 6D, Sigma 50-500mm lens @ 500mm @ f/6.3 with a 0.8-second exposure @ ISO 3200. #moon #lunar #moon_awards @moon_awards @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 @photographerfocus #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 #gerroa #eclipse
29 Jul 2018. The red orb 🌑 On the eastern coast of Australia we missed out on seeing the total lunar eclipse all the way through. The point of maximum eclipse was reached at 6:21 am, and the Moon then set at 6:55 am. I’ve seen many photos already that captured the entire sequence, from lucky folk who were in better locations than I was. Although I took lots of photos that featured Mars as well as the Moon, I’m particularly taken with this one showing the fully-eclipsed moon on its way to setting behind Seven Mile Beach, Australia. 📆 It's going to be nearly three years before the next total eclipse that's visible from my part of the world. I'm disappointed that my plans came undone thanks to a very bad sleep on the previous night, which resulted in me arriving at my shooting spot after the eclipse was well underway. At least I didn't sleep right through the event. 📷 Canon EOS 6D, Sigma 50-500mm lens @ 161mm @ f/5.6, 1.0 sec @ ISO 3200. • • • • • #moon #lunar #moon_awards @moon_awards @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 @photographerfocus #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 Gerri #kiama #eclipse
28 Jul 2018. Red reflections 💤 😱 The total lunar eclipse this morning (Saturday 28 July) was as beautiful as I’d hoped it would be. Unfortunately, though, I slept through two alarms and didn’t get up at 1:00 am as planned, to drive to my chosen location at Gerroa, Australia. Waking at 3:00 am meant that I didn’t miss the total eclipse phase, but there was no time when I arrived to set up for the time-lapse I wanted to shoot, nor to do test shots with foreground lighting. Still, I didn’t miss the whole event and came home with some acceptable images. 🌑 The Moon and Mars are the dominant features of the western sky in my photo, although they don’t look quite as orange-red as they appeared to my eyes. Their reflections show much more of their true colours both on the surface of the water in Berry’s Bay and the shallow rock pool closer to the camera. It will be almost three years before there’s another total lunar eclipse visible in my part of the planet, so I’m grateful to have seen & photographed at least some of this one. 📷 I took this single-frame photo using a Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, fitted with a Canon 40mm lens @ f/2.8, using a 2.0-second exposure time @ ISO 3200. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 @photographerfocus #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #globalpixels #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #nightimages #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #gerroa #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #moon #lunar #moon_awards @moon_awards @southcoastregister
24 Jul 2018. Centreline 🚙 Take your pick, if you please, as to which centreline my title is referring to. The centreline of the Braidwood Road, or the centreline of the sky, in the form of the Milky Way? It took me several stops to find a location where this road lined up with the Milky Way in just the way I wanted. I was fortunate to have only one vehicle pass through while I was shooting here, which isn’t usually the case on this road. On weekends it’s particularly busy, so maybe it was quiet due to this being on a weeknight. 🌌 A few weeks back I was listening to the Photog Adventures podcast, on which one of the gents commented about how hard it must be for Southern Hemisphere folk to compose photos that include a terrestrial foreground, as well as the Milky Way at this time of year. I understood his point because the Milky Way passes almost directly overhead here in my part of Australia during these winter months, but I took it as a challenge to create some images with the Milky Way’s core riding high over an interesting earthly scene. 🌟🌲 The leaves on the trees have been blurred here due to the exposure time of 30 seconds for each photo and the strong wind that was blowing. Mars is very bright up at the top of the picture, but still not at its brightest for this year. If you know the southern skies at all, you might be able to make out the Southern Cross towards the bottom, next to the dark area known as the Coal Sack Nebula. 📷 Seven photos were taken to create this final image, with each picture in the sequence overlapping the one before it. The settings I used for each shot were: Canon EOS 6D camera, Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 lens @ f/2.4, 15-second exposure @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 @photographerfocus #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 #Stargazing #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #milkywaychasers
23 Jul 2018. Planets at play around the Milky Way 🎂 I don’t have much time to write up a description for today’s post. It’s my birthday and I’ve been having time with my family after a busy day at work. 🌌 So, briefly, Mars is bright and orange up at the top-right of the shot. Jupiter is the big white “star” at the bottom left, getting very close to the orange glow of the lights of the city of Canberra, 120 km away (75 mi). The central band and galactic core of the Milky Way is the big stain crossing from left to right of the scene. The planet Saturn is in there as well, a little above the central band. I have pushed some of the processing settings beyond what I normally use, to highlight the details of the dust lanes around the centre of the Milky Way. 📷 I used three overlapping images, each shot in portrait orientation, to produce this final single image. Each of those three photos was taken with Canon EOS 6D Mk II, Samyang 14mm @ f/2.8, 30 sec @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 @photographerfocus #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
20 Jul 2018. Dam fine sky 🚙 Bamarang Dam is a secondary water reservoir, located about 10km southwest of the coastal-plain town of Nowra, on Australia’s southeast coast. Despite being a weeknight, I visited the dam on Tuesday of this week, determined to make use of a clear night with very little moisture in the air. The moon was setting just as I arrived, leaving me only some local light pollution to contend with. The two-hour drive meant I’d be late to bed after shooting and then returning home, but pushing through tiredness at work is a skill I’ve been perfecting. 🌌🌙 The dam’s intake structure can be seen at the bottom-left, silhouetted by light spilling from the nearby HMAS Albatross naval aviation base and some coastal towns further off. In the sky above the inlet are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, companion dwarf galaxies that are travelling through space with our home galaxy, the Milky Way. You can see the Milky Way itself rising almost vertically from over the dam wall and up to the top of my image. The planet Mars is dominating the top left-hand corner of the scene, and Jupiter is slipping behind the trees on the right, still over three hours from setting for the night. The background sky colour is showing the green hue of atmospheric airglow. 📷 Each of the seven photos used to create this vertical panorama was taken using a Canon EOS 6D camera, with a Samyang 14mm XP lens @ f/3.2, for a 30-second exposure @ ISO 6400. The camera was mounted on a Nodal Ninja 3 panoramic head atop a Manfrotto tripod. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 @photographerfocus #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
18 Jul 2018. Planets playing in the treetops 🌳 🌲 This overhead vista was my view last night while I stood along the centreline of the Braidwood Road near Nowra, Australia. A fierce wind was blowing through the area making the camera shake a little, but the sky was very clear and satisfyingly dark.
🍊 Our solar system’s most massive planet, Jupiter, is the bright light in the trees on the left of the shot. Shining with an unmissable orange glow over on the right is Mars, about ten days away from its closest approach to Earth in 15 years. On average, Mars is the fifth-brightest object visible to our eyes in the night sky, but from July through September this year it will be brighter than the third-place holder, Jupiter. 🌌 The dusty-looking, colourful streak running between these two bright planets, stretching from the top to the bottom of my photo, is the edge-on view we have of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. A third planet, Saturn, is hiding amongst this strip of stars, dust and dark gas that marks the winter nights here in Australia.
📷 This image is a single-frame shot, captured with a Canon EOS 6D camera, a Samyang 14mm XP lens @ f/2.8, for an exposure time of 25 seconds @ ISO 6400. • • • • • @astro_photography_ @space @universe247 #astro_photography_ #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskyshots #elitelongexposures #fantastic_universe #jupiter #ig_astrophotography #ig_shutterworld #night_shooterz #mars #nightphotography #nightscape #nightscapeoz #nightscaper #nightshooters #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #StargazingABC #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #MilkyWayGrams
16 Jul 2018. A starry paint job 🚙 Even a dirty car can reflect starlight on a dark enough night! That’s the Milky Way’s core region you can see bouncing off my Suzuki Swift’s windscreen and body paint. 🔭 I recently spent about three hours at this location southwest of Nowra, Australia, photographing my beloved southern night skies. A dry breeze blowing in from the south-west was enough to keep any dew from forming on my camera’s lens and made for excellent seeing. There was enough atmospheric airglow and starlight that once my eyes got to their best night-sensitivity (which usually comes at least 30 minutes after seeing any bright light), I could walk around in the dark without any artificial light source required. 🌌 Having to leave for the two-hour drive home to Sydney reminded me of times spent fishing with my father when I was younger when the fishing was so good that we had to have “just one more cast”, or fifty. Having packed most of my camera gear away in the car before taking another look at the sky, I was forced (yes, forced, I tell you) to grab my camera and tripod for “just one more shot.” Yeah, right, just ONE more! 📷 Like most of the photos I shot on this night, I used the following equipment and settings for this image: Canon EOS 6D Mk II, 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 #stargazing #startalkradio #timelessuniverse #universe #universetoday #WeOwnTheNight_IG #night_excl #suzuki #super_longexpo #milkyway #galaxy #WOTN_MilkyWay #MilkyWayChasers #nowra #MilkyWayGrams
15 Jul 2018. More Moon Thanks, everyone, for all of the Likes you gave to yesterday’s photo of the ultra-fine crescent Moon. My moon photos often don’t do well on Insta, so it was great to see the response to that one. I’m stretching the friendship a little, I know, by posting another moon image today. This time I put together three photos that were all taken today (Sunday, 15th July) from my balcony in Miranda, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. The left-hand image shows the planet Mercury; the crescent moon; the star Regulus; and the planet Venus. If you swipe to the left you can see a marked-up image showing where on the photo these features are. The moon was a thin crescent once again, but you can see the larger part of the Moon lit up by what is called “earthshine”. When light from the Sun reflects off the Earth’s surface and clouds, some of it is then reflected off the moon and back to us, faintly showing features on the moon that would otherwise be in darkness. The two square images on the right were taken two hours apart, one before the sun had set and the other after. • • • • • #moon #lunar #moon_awards @moon_awards #earthshine #venus #mercury
14 Jul 2018. My newest of New Moons 🌙 I think this is the thinnest sliver of moon that I’ve ever photographed! At the point of New Moon, our planet’s natural satellite isn’t visible due to the glare of the Sun’s light. When I shot this photo today it was only 29 hours since New Moon, so it was barely visible, but even at such a small phase, you can still see the signs of craters and mountains on the Moon’s surface. 👍 “You cannot look up at the night sky on the Planet Earth and not wonder what it's like to be up there amongst the stars. And I always look up at the moon and see it as the single most romantic place within the cosmos.” Tom Hanks 📷 I shot this photo with a Canon EOS 7D camera, through a Sigma 50-500mm lens @ 500mm @ f/6.3, using a 1/100 second exposure @ ISO 1600. • • • • • #moon #lunar #moon_awards @moon_awards #thin #newmoon