I feel priveleged to have fantastic opporutnities come up from time to time in the astronomy/astrophotography space due to my involve in the community within WA. Many are due to volunteering but I don’t take them for granted. In September I enjoyed an absolutely awesome 4 night road trip with Perth Observatory to volunteer at a public viewing night for the Gascoyne Junciton community. I would like to give a huge thank you to Matthew Woods of the Perth Observatory for this efforts in making this road trip happen. It is through my involve volunteering at Perth Observatory that I have come to run ..read more

For the last few months I have had the pleasure of using a Leofoto Ranger LS-284CVL carbon fibre tripod and thought it about time I posted some information about this fantastic piece of astrophotography equipment. Those who have participated in my workshops know that most of my tripod gear is Manfrotto, rounded out with a Velbon compact carbon fibre tripod that fits in carry-on luggage. The Manfrotto gear has served me well, the Velbon carbon fibre less so, but overall I have got by without a problem. I have used Manfrotto heads across the board to standardise quick release plates. Early in 20 ..read more

Eta Carina nebula in Ha (16x300s). It is only recently (January) that I finally installed my first ever set of narrowband filters. They are installed on my William Optics Megrez 90mm with ZWO 1600MM camera. Recently I have taken some time to process a few shots from this, and Eta Carina is one of these. Here is a relatively straight forward exposure but which looked particularly stunning I thought, when I saw the initial result. It is 16 exposures of 5 minutes each, all using a h-alpha filter. Check out the hoops, knots, holes of the nebula. Fantastic I think. There’s a couple of crops to s ..read more

In case you didn’t know, I’m on: Twitter: https://twitter.com/aus_astro_photo Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/astrophotographyaustralia/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/astrophotographyaustralia Look forward to seeing you there! The post Follow me … appeared first on Astro Photography australia ..read more

The Superfull Moon from 7th April 2020. Photographed from my remote site https://www.astroobservatorieswa.com.au/ The post Superfull Moon April 2020 appeared first on Astro Photography australia ..read more

I am, like everyone else, unable to do in-person one-on-one or group workshops at the current time due to social distancing recommendations and restrictions. HOWEVER – I am happy to offer one-on-one workshops via Skype or FaceTime. This is actually, come to think of it, a fantastic opportunity for you and I. I operate my one-on-one online workshops from my backyard observatory. This gives me access to the complete range of equipment you might need to learn about in your workshop. No longer do I have to decide what I bring with me, it’s simply all there! Online workshops are charged at the same ..read more

Southern Skies photographed from Astro Observatories Western Australia site in the WA Wheatbelt. I enjoyed a night of good old simple astronomy last night. A rarity in my current life of various commitments and having a young kid. Perfectly dark, clear and steady skies, a mix of astrophotography and visual star-hopping with a 8″ SCT telescope. Give a moderate telescope such as an 8″ dark skies and there is so much to see – Fornax galaxies, Ghost of Jupiter, the usual showpieces of various nebulas and galaxies. Absolutely fantastic. So dark. Also, my backyard telescope has now been successful ..read more

  Milky Way core overhead, surrounded by silhouettes of gum trees. I regularly hold workshops teaching how to photograph the Milky Way, something I have been doing since 2012. This nightscape astro photo was taken at my rural dark skies property, one of the several locations you could choose to have a one-on-one or small group workshop with me to capture your own photographs of our fantastic southern hemisphere skies. More information on my photography workshops can be found at my workshops page. The post Milky way core with Wheatbelt silhouettes appeared first on Astro Photography australia ..read more

The Milky Way photographed from outside the town of Southern Cross when on tour with the Perth Observatory. In early August 2019 I had the opportunity to participate in a Night Sky Tour for the local Southern Cross (the town) High School and community. Travelling there with the Perth Observatory we ran a night sky tour showing the communith the wonders of our night sky through the telescopes of the Perth Observatory. Following the night sky tour there was an astrophotography session where I took a group of locals through the process of using their own cameras for astrophotography. It was a v ..read more