The Backyard Universe | Tour agent

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The Backyard Universe

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24.01.2022 Comet SWAN has vanished from our morning skies but there's now Comet Lemmon in our evening skies. Visible in binoculars & small telescopes already and getting brighter. Not bad for an object that was so dead when first discovered, it was classified as an asteroid. Photo was taken last Friday evening. #fleurieupeninsula #fleurieucoast

15.01.2022 This morning's photo of Comet SWAN, in between the clouds. #fleurieucoast #fleurieupeninsula

12.01.2022 This morning's photo of Comet SWAN; now much brighter than our previous view of it a few days ago and also showing a thin tail. The comet head is just visible to the eye, and easily visible in binoculars, if you're viewing it from the dark skies over the rural Fleurieu Peninsula. See the Southern Comets Homepage for more info (and better photos) -- and Visit Fleurieu Coast Visit Fleurieu Peninsula

11.01.2022 Our new video, featuring the Fleurieu Peninsula and our lockdown tour of its night skies: https://youtu.be/Zba_WWKHFFA #fleurieupeninsula #fleurieucoast #morethanadaytrip

09.01.2022 A panorama of this morning's planets with a waning Moon. 1 second exposure @ ISO1600 is enough to show Mars Jupiter & Saturn plus a few stars; but it overexposes the daytime side of the Moon.

06.01.2022 With the release of the SA government's latest covid19 regulations today; we're pleased to announce that: (1) We're resuming our stargazing tours at Wirrina from June 11. Each tour is limited to a single booking for 1 to 10 people. Yes we could have started in time for the June long weekend but there's a full moon! ** EDIT -- book these tours online at https://www.thebackyarduniverse.com.au/starWirrina.htm **... (2) Our minibus services are running again. Contact us directly to book a trip.

05.01.2022 Last night, from our backyard.... :-) #fleurieucoast #fleurieupeninsula

03.01.2022 Spaceflight history got made this week. The first live demonstration of interstellar navigation was done by the New Horizons spacecraft, using the nearby stars Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359. Proxima and Wolf 359 are both much less bright than our own sun, thus even though they're nearby neither one is visible without a telescope. In fact Wolf 359 is about as dim as a star can get. As part of the experiment, astro photographers around the world were invited to photograph both ...stars with their telescopes at the same time as the spacecraft was taking its own images. We'll be waiting a while for the spacecraft to (slowly) transmit its images home from 8 billion km away, so meanwhile take a look at ours. Done with a 200mm camera lens rather than a telescope. Our images were not done at exactly the same time as New Horizons. We got 13mm of rain instead that night! But (a) both stars were detected, and (b) our rainwater tank is now full :-) More details on the experiment here: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Learn/Get-Involved.php

02.01.2022 This morning's photo of Comet SWAN. The comet head was located next to the star Iota Ceti, forming a faint 'double star' to the eye. Easily visible in camera viewfinder or binoculars. The comet tail is still too faint to be eyeballed, but now extends to about 4 degrees long in our photos. Also spotted a few Eta Aquarid meteors during this session.... This is probably our final photo of this comet, because of forecast cloudy mornings for the next few days. Also the comet is getting lower in the sky each morning and will soon be hidden behind trees from our place. #fleurieupeninsula

01.01.2022 Congratulations to Michael for his new comet discovery. Unfortunately the international naming rules for comets required it to be named for the spacecraft instrument that detected it (https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/summary/swan/). Instead of naming it for the Australian amateur astronomer who found the comet in the spacecraft's image library; then confirmed it with his backyard telescope. To see this comet you will need a dark sky, a clear view to the south-east at about 5am, and a telescope or large binoculars. Our 15x70 binos should work, but we've been defeated by clouds on that part of the sky on both mornings we've tried so far

01.01.2022 Finally saw the new Comet SWAN this morning, almost on top of a background star. #fleurieucoast #fleurieupeninsula

The Backyard Universe | Tour agent