Night Sky

We're about to head away on travels in the next few days and now are in 'final preparations'. It's likely that I'll be (at the most) an occasional visitor for the next five weeks. First stop is Singapore, then points further north - who knows, we may even see an aurora! My thanks to the ipernity friends who have kindly given advice for our travels and best wishes to all here for the coming weeks. This image was first loaded to ipernity shortly after I joined and now is updated (view large on black). From an old 1966 slide (160 ISO Ektachrome , Minolta SR1, Minolta Auto Rokkor 58/1.4) taken at Mawson Station, Antarctica. Looking toward the SW, with snow drifts beside the huts - the kitchen/mess to the left and the radio shack to the right with the bright light. All these buildings have now gone as the station has been rebuilt.

The moon heading into eclipse, with Mars nearby. Taken shortly before moonset (in Eastern Australia). K1 in crop mode, HDR. Best viewed large on black

Best viewed large (see also notes). Looking south with some cloud and lights across the water - a very similar viewpoint to my previous image.

Looking at the night sky up past Orion (those of you in the Northern Hemisphere would recognise this inverted), as clouds began to roll in and call a halt to proceedings. Details in notes and best viewed large. I know Pam would be interested in this.

We were fortunate to have a clear night with no moon, so I was able to get this Milky Way bow with a stitched panorama. Best viewed large, maybe while listening to this. HFF and have a great weekend, everyone. Explored.

Looking at the Southern Cross and the adjacent areas of the southern night sky - best viewed large (though first check the details in the Notes). Tonight I feel a Leonard Cohen link is appropriate, though the relevance may be less clear outside Australia.

Today I flickered past another photo community I once visited often, and realised I hadn't posted this image here. In 2013, with Jupiter high and bright, I wanted a photo of Jupiter with its moons. It was easier said than done! Although I could get Jupiter, in long telephoto the long exposures needed for the moons resulted in significant motion blur. The only alternative was a very high ISO (12800 @ 1/50) which left Jupiter just a bright white circle. So I did the "HDR thing" and substituted a correctly exposed Jupiter image. Best viewed on black.

Taken near our home. The foreground lighting from the street lamp behind me, the red glow from the nearby bushfire (at this stage about 8km away and being held back by fire crews). The morning after this image, as suggested by the Rural Fire Brigade, we left with some of our possessions as there is a risk the only access road could be cut by fire. We are now safe, but over the next few days are hoping to make a quick return visit to retrieve more items to safety in case the fire should come through - it is still out of control and over 73,000 ha at present (see PiP). I shall be very infrequent on ipernity, but would like to extend my very real appreciation to all who have sent their messages of support for me and my wife. In these worrying times, believe me it does help. :-)

This needs to be viewed large on black. Even then. it may be difficult to find the comet on this image of the night sky, so I've put a 'note' just below the centre to identify it. For even better viewing of the comet, I've added a cropped image in the PiP at top left (and below), which should help those using phones. This comet (official title C/2020_F8_SWAN) was discovered in late March. It is not yet visible to the naked eye, so I had to take bearings to find it for this image. Then it was a matter of rising at 0400 on a chilly Autumn morning to catch it just above the eastern horizon before sunrise. It soon will become brighter, but the coming full moon will create sighting difficulties before it passes below the southern hemisphere horizon. Maybe those of you in the north will have a better view later in May. For information on its position, I highly recommend the Heavens Above website. Taken using the 'Astrotracer' feature on the Pentax K1, to enable long exposure tracking. And, after all that, why not a musical link. :-) Explored.