Astro Photography Australia | Photographer

Astro Photography Australia

Phone: +61 407 330 464

Add/Update information

Reviews

Tags

• Businesses
• Local service
• Photographer
• Photography and videography

23.01.2022 Last night I took a small 80mm refractor out to do some test shots of the conjunction ahead of a planned family trip this evening. While the planets are high above the horizon for a good hour after sunset it's always a challenge to relate scale and location, so I decided to make sure I got some silhouette shots as they set. Fuji X-T30, William Optics Megrez @ ~850mm. Far from perfect optics but bodes well for taking the larger telescope tonight.

22.01.2022 Entries are now open for the 2021 Astrofest Astrophotogrpahy Competition. This year there are $7,500 worth of prizes up for grabs! Entries from West Australian residents only. Entries close 4th December. https://www.facebook.com//a.156565342701/2678885042361354/

22.01.2022 The Great Conjunciton of Jupiter and Saturn from yesterday 21st December. This is my best attempt to date of processing some images from the event. Processing this event's images poses some interesting questions. Do you process the images to show both planets in good detail at the sacrafice of accurate representation of their comparative brightness? Do you process the event to show their moons which again are fainter and otherwise maybe not shown? Do you process the one image... from one photograph or video only, or use the best quality data from separate images/videos? I have landed up using data from one video, processed it twice once for Jupiter and once Saturn, overlaid those two results on a single photograph of longer exposure showing the Moons of Jupiter. That photograph didn't feature any moons of Saturn, pehraps due to brighter twilight sky at the time or perhaps due to their relative brightness. The brightness of Saturn is slightly brighter than it would be comparative to Jupiter from a single exposure, I chose a middle-ground where it was more visible but still represented the fact it was considerably fainter than Jupiter. This was taken through a 1970 orange tube C8 ... oh what a wonderful classic telescope! However, it odes have notable colour finging thanks to those anging optics, which again could have been remvoed in post-processing but I didn't (another debate to be had). My Canon 6D was used, recording direct to BackyardEOS on my laptop. For me the event was as much about family and bystanders getting to see the event visually (you'll see more "about the event" shots in a separate post) as it was photographing the subjects. So, this is a result that I think serves my purposes.

21.01.2022 Tonight I will be helping out Matt at the Perth Observatory with a live stream from my telescope in the Central Wheatbelt. We're going to do a "user requests" night, so get your list ready of Deep Sky Object's you'd like to see/photograph live. This time I'll be giving it a try with my ST8 camera & 12" SCT (so relatively small FOV of Angular Size: 0 21' 24" x 0 14' 16" that suits galaxies, planetary nebula and smaller nebulas & clusters). 8pm tonight.

18.01.2022 Setting up for tonight’s conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. Important things: telescope. Cameras. Family. BBQ. Conjunction Sausages! Lake Leschenaultia

18.01.2022 Almost a week ago I ran an astrophotography workshop for Perth Observatory at Kalbarri, Western Australia, Kalbarri National Park. The location is absolutely spectacular and the new Skywalk installation world class. There are abundant options for astrophotography of course, curtailed somewhat by the insanity of unnecessary internal and external lighting on the Skywalk cafe infrastructure. Why, in the middle of a fantastically dark and quite isolated location you would waste ...electricity only to cause light pollution and hence limit tourism opporutnities is beyond me. The lighting is not designed for saftey and there are better ways to manage security if the intention is for that. It seems an architect's after-thought to uplight the structure for the abundant wildlife to enjoy in the absense of humans on most nights. Anyway, if you can organise for the lights to be turned off ahead of time or work around them, there are many opportunities. Back to the photo at hand. This photograph just takes my breath away. I can stare it for ages and remember the serenity, the silence, the peace, the warmth of the afternoon light. Absolutely amazing late afternoon light while participants were arriving. This is a two frame panoramic taken with my X-T30.

16.01.2022 Coming up on the 14th November I have a polar alignment workshop with Midland Camera House at my dark sky property in the Central Wheatbelt (Shire of Cunderdin). Come along if you want to understand polar alignment and learn various approaches of how to polar align your equatorial mount. Spend a fun evening under the spectacular dark skies of family property. You can stay just for the workshop, camp overnight or you could choose to stay in Quairading or York which are not far. See attached image for details, phone Midland Camera House to book. If planning to camp overnight contact myself also. The evening is restricted to 15 workshop participants.

15.01.2022 Lovely afternoon light and the Moon, a few days ago as we were leaving the Wheatbelt late in the afternoon for the drive home.

13.01.2022 The other night I was out at my country property for some maintenance work. The weather was a bit mixed, with gusty wind and cloud, results of nearby storms. I left my Fuji X-T30 taking 60s exposures for the duration and landed up with this panorama as one result. Nice to have some lightning in it with the stars, even if not spectacularly close :) Quite a green colour to the sky that night, green airglow.

12.01.2022 Jupiter and Saturn conjunction on the 21st December. I have to admit I hadn’t looked at this in fine detail until now, but now that I have I am genuinely shocked how close Jupiter and Saturn are going to be. I guess we all need context to understand these things, and for me the context is the tiny 10’ x 15’ FOV of my SBIG on my 12 SCT within which they both comfortably fit on the 21st December!! Unfortunately though they are far too bright for the SBIG to photograph, never m...ind the camera’s complete unsuitability for the task. The larger square in the below screen shot is my 90mm refractor with ZWO 1600mm which will probably be my combination of choice for the occasion, even though resolution will not be fantastic, cropping in heavily to the two objects in the centre. The ideal combination would be the refractor, with doubler or barlow lens, and either my 6D using BackyardEOS or my Fuji X-T30 recording in-camera. But both those options require reconfiguration of the remote hosted telescope, which is disruptive, it creates a headache of recalibration the setup after the fact to get back to a normal working order. More than anything I want to visually see the conjunction and show it to my kid, as I think that has far more benefit than a photograph in this case. Photographs will most likely be composites anyway even with the two objects so close together, and a composite is a composite, be it at 10’ separation or 10 degrees separation, where as seeing it visually is a rare opportunity. Do you have plans for photographing the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn?

11.01.2022 Saturday November 7th I'm out at a fantastic location near Northam with Stargazers Club WA for an astrophotography beginners field trip. There's still a few spots left for this fun evening. Bookings via the Stargazers Club WA website: https://stargazersclubwa.com.au/stargazing-events-perth/

10.01.2022 A nice sunset driving home from the Wheatbelt last weekend. Such flat horizons, you see the sunset going on and on and on. Had to pull over and snap a pic on this occasion, so many great shots I drive past.

09.01.2022 On Saturday night I enjoyed a fun evening with Stargazers Club WA in the Astrotourism WA town of Northam at St Saviour’s Anglican Church. We had a great group of photographers just having a go at astrophotography and learning lots. Thanks to those who came and made the night so fun! I did not have much time at all for my own photography but did snap one pic at the start of the evening, and visited there a few days earlier during twilight, so have a few pics attached. #astrophotography

08.01.2022 Saturday I enjoyed a great night out at my Central Wheatbelt block for a one-on-one workshop. A bit of thin cloud came over as you can see but didn't dampen the experience at all. Wow isn't that Milky Way getting low in the west now? It'll all be about Orion soon :) #astrophotography

07.01.2022 I caught up with a great photographer and friend Paul Dowe of Paul Dowe Galleries today at Abbey Beach Resort where Paul has relocated his gallery to recently. Drop in to the resort and check out his gallery and have a chat if you are in the area. Paul has kindly volunteered as one of the three judges for the 2021 Astronomy WA Astrofest 2021 Astrophotography Competition (entries close 4th Dec!).

07.01.2022 Awesome prizes to be won in this year’s Astrofest Astrophotography competition :) get four shots taken and entries in.

05.01.2022 I enjoyed a beautiful night out at my family's central wheatbelt property on Monday night to do a little maintenance. It was clear, calm and cool. Dead quiet and not a sole around. The moonrise was beautiful, so I had to stop work to photograph it. Fuji X-T30, Samyang 12mm f/2 @ F/4, 18s, 3200ISO. Workshop out there with Midland Camera House on the 14th.