We have been blessed/cursed by a very dry Djeran / Autumn period. Cursed because no rain after a long, hot Bunuru( Second Summer) and blessed because the nights are cold, and very clear.

This and @rdm having to be on Munich time for a few days prompted some enthusiastic astrophotography sessions ahead of the news that the clouds were finally coming to us with some rain.

We figured that we'd do a lot of astrophotography, and then write it up and share photos during the rainy cloudy bits to keep us going.

So here we are - this is my first post about it, and it's about the last day of the clear sky.

We have here NGC 4945 or Caldwell 83 - also known as the Tweezers Galaxy (I personally think it looks more like an orange peeler).

I was leafing through Astronomy Australia 2025 and found it as a target for May. I hadn't come across this galaxy before, and was thrilled to find a galaxy that's a big enough apparent size to suit my #dwarf3

These are great books and the last of this great almanac that they'll publish, after 30 years - so get yours today - https://quasarastronomy.com.au/product/astronomy-2025/ even though it's a yearbook it's still going to be useful down the track. If you're in Australia or close enough. #SouthernHemisphereAstronomy folks. I grabbed some of their back catalogue - incredibly cheap and plenty of interesting stuff in there, if only historically. 🙂

So, anyway, back to the galaxy - I plonked the #SmartTelescope on the roof later in the evening so it's only a few hours exposure. Gain was 80, exposure was 60. Got a few hundred frames in two sessions as I belatedly realised that I should get the telescope to shut down before the closest Sun made itself apparent.

So then, in the morning @rdm ran me through the Mega Stack and Stellar Studio provided through Infinity Lab within the telescope, which was super easy, and then I did some cropping in Snapseed.

And this is the result, I hope you enjoy!

#Astrodon #Astronomy #BackyardAstrophotography #DrivewayAstrophotography #Galaxy

So on the Anzac Day weekend I finally was able to take a print of my award winning photograph taken at Orchard Glory Farm Resort to present to the proprietor David, as a thank you for keeping the skies dark.

Thank you to @rdm for taking the photos for the presentation and once again to the #Astrofest for the photography competition and of course, #AustralasianDarkSkyAlliance for sponsoring the prize.

#Astrodon #astrophotography #SouthernHemisphereAstronomy #astronomy

So continuing with my ramble about the Gingin trip we had to take some astrophotos. So you're sitting in the siding, next an open paddock as your photos stack, and suddenly a loud noise starts up and continues for quite some time.

https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/272712152

It sounded like a fox to me, I've never heard one that close before, so see what you think.

A couple of Gingin policemen helpfully drove over with all their spotties on high beam, but turned them off apologetically when they realised we were not the droids they were looking for and then got very interested, and received a quick course in astronomy.

So things can be quite eventful when you're just sitting around, getting those frames stacked.

Here's a couple of photos that @rdm took of me on the last night, where we just set up behind our accomodation just to do a little. You can see I have Sandqvist 149 there, and the other photo I'm sharing with you today.

For your viewing pleasure I fed it into nova.astrometry.net so you can see what's what. But the simple answer is the Tarantula Nebula and friends. I accidentally stopped part way through - even the new long press required isn't foolproof, but with the new mega stack function I was able to start it again and squish the two sessions together so it turned out very nicely.

#DwarfII #DwarfIII
#WesternAustralia
#Astrodon #Astronomy #Astrophotography #SouthernHemisphereAstronomy

So to continue with highlights from our #astrophotography expedition to Gingin, another subject I had some fun with was Sandqvist 149.

Yes, I'm aware of its other, more popular name but let's let the discoverer have some kudos, huh?

This is a dark nebula, a star-blotting-out mass of dust that looks like a crack in the sky. You can see some stars in front of it which gives me a sense of three dimensionality to the usual flatness that I get of looking into the infinity of the night sky, and gives perhaps the sense that it is a dust cloud there, not a crack in reality.

The image on the left I took with the #dwarfiii - 60 second exposure, with a gain of 80, and stacked 40 of them.

That's coming to us straight out of camera, and I'll do some post to it sometime.

The image on the right was taken with the #DwarfII with shutter 15 and gain 80, for about 330 frames - and is the first time I've used a stellation mask.

I think that they look a bit silly - because stars don't look like that and it's a really artificial sort of prettiness that's a bit kitsch to me. Sorry to everyone who uses them - I mean they can look pretty, I admit...but for me they're usually meh.

I thought it would be funny to use one for a dark object.

#Astrodon #AstroPhotograhy #SouthernHemisphereAstronomy #DarkNebula #Sandquist149

We drove to the Gingin Roadhouse and settled in. The proprietor previously worked as an engineering in the Indian rocketry industry after they stopped using Russian boosters and started up their own, so he was very interested. He actually went all around the service station turning off all the security lights and alarms while we were photographing.

I fed one of my phone photos into the astrometry website, so here you can see our car beneath the Argo (Vela is the Argo's sail and Puppis is the Poop Deck - Argo was too big so they broke it up into bits) and Canis Major is lifting its leg on our vehicle!

#astronomy #astrophotography #SouthernHemisphereastronomy
#Astrodon

Well, we've been quite busy over the last two weekends and such, and a lot of it has involved astrophotography.

Our Easter was quite peaceful so we chilled out and did some photography then - I took this of the Trifid and Lagoon #Nebula on Easter Sunday. I've got a Dwarf 3 (and 2) so we're used to landscape - but I rotated this in post, because it looked really good that way.

Tilt your head to see it in the original.

#Astrophotography #dwarf3 #SouthernHemisphereAstronomy #DrivewayAstrophotography #BackyardAstrophotography #Astrodon

Hello folks, it's been a little while so lets get some sky happening down here in #PerthWesternAustralia

I've been enjoying my Dwarf3 telescope, so let me share with you the unicorn's nostril (true, you look at Monoceras and that's where it is!), the Rosette Nebula, or Caldwell 49.

We also have IC 2944 another great Nebula, but one I'm in extreme doubt about its popular name to the extent that I'm going to use my own name for it, so let me introduce you to the Rising Phoenix Nebula. If you want to use the other name that's fine but lalalalala I can't hear you.

Both those images are straight out of camera. I think at least 400 frames but I'd have to check my records as it was a week or two ago.

The next subject is a bit small, I've cropped it a bit to make up for it somewhat. It's NGC 2997, a spiral galaxy in Antlia the Bellows. Why have I bothered given that I like an apparent size of 20 or so minutes, and this doesn't even get to 10? Well, it's one of these rare, to my view, straight on spiral galaxies, it's not edge on, so it gets a pass. And this got a good couple of hours last night, and turned out really well, I dickered a little with Snapseed. We had some rain, and wow, the sky was very clean and clear, and this object shows it. I really want to do a longer exposure, even if it's little.

And the last one is one that did get that longer treatment - it's the notorious Centaurus A, commonly known as the Hamburger Galaxy. I left this one on the roof overnight preprogrammed for a good few hours and this comes to you also from straight out of camera. It really is a peculiar galaxy, and sports a couple of supernovae and a dust cloud that gives it that split look.

#astronomy #BackYardAstronomy #SouthernHemisphereAstronomy #DrivewayAstrophotography #DwarfIII #DwarfLab #Astrodon

#Astrodon , I have a question. I've been taking photos of the LMC - not the main bit where all the action is, but the outskirts.

Do you see the thing that looks somewhat like a planetary nebula, towards the upper right and forming a triangle with NGC 2114 and NGC 2117, looking like a circle with a cluster in it?
I put it into astrometry.net but it hasn't annotated it. I've provided the annotated version too.

What is it, does anyone know? It's what led me to target the area in the first place and it looks interesting, I'd like to know more about it.

Otherwise I'm just going to call it Leece's Lucent Pearl 😉

#astronomy #BackYardAstronomy #SouthernHemisphereAstronomy #DrivewayAstrophotography #LargeMagellanicCloud

As promised, the Jellyfish nebula.

#astronomy #astrophotography #SouthernHemisphereAstronomy #DrivewayAstrophotography #BackYardAstronomy

Recently we have been blessed with the presence of Comet c/2024 G3 (Atlas) so we were wandering down to the beach hopefully. Naturally it being high summer one would expect clear skies by we actually had an overcast sky and rain one of the best viewing nights! High winds also did not help at all the next day or two, but we did get some shots.

I have many more photographs of the comet but this will do for now, took it with the Dwarf 3. rdm had an interesting discovery, this comet is going to move toward the south, and stop setting, a bit like that Pole Star the Northern Hemisphere folks have and we're totally not jealous of because we can do that thing with the Southern Cross and the Pointers, and anyway we've got the Carina Nebula so nyeer.

*Deep Breath* So anyway we've been giving some attention to the Pleiades and Hyades, and other stuff that's a bit North for us. Nyingarn, the Echidna (or Orion if you like) is in the clear for us at home so stuff around there is good to look at before bedtime.

We all know by now that I'm a nebula kinda girl, so when I was scrolling around the Star Atlas I found a nebula that was just the right size for my telescope's field of view. It's called the Monkey's Head Nebula or NGC 2174. Unlike a lot of these fancifully named objects, it, to me, really does look like a primate head, although more apelike - even gorilla like than monkey. See what you think - here's a shot straight out of camera for you.

A couple of hours there.
In the same area we also have the Jellyfish Nebula, so the next night I targeted that. The photo will follow, I've run out of room to post it here.

Again only a couple of hours - but that's the gap we get of usable dark sky between astronomical night and beddybyes. I think it needs more time but even so straight out of camera we do get an intriguing image. I shall dicker with it some, but I like to share the unenhanced image with you first.

If you embiggen it you can see that there's plenty more nebulosity kicking around so more time and a bit of enhancement may be rewarding, I'll report back. rdm is getting us a funky SIIOIII filter so that will be interesting compared and combined with the inbuilt HAOIII in the Dwarf3. You know, I love these nebulas - I'm always looking for things that aren't tiny in the screen of the Dwarf and these are nicely sized, these along with the Rosette Nebula (aka Unicorn Nostril) are just the thing to have fun with the telescope.

And for me they don't have dirty great buildings and trees in the way which is unfortunately the case at home for most of the interesting stuff to the South, you know that Galactic Core and Carina stuff.

#WesternAustralia #PerthWesternAustralia #astronomy #astrophotography #SouthernHemisphereAstronomy #DrivewayAstrophotography #dwarf3