All I can say is Wow…it really did take some time to come down from the natural high of having so many incredible speakers all together in the one place giving all the 400 people who attended such outstanding talks about our Universe.
 
I just don’t know how our SAS member Dylan O’Donnell managed to put this amazing event all together, it started out as an idea of bringing some real science to his area of Bryon Bay and ‘O Boy’…look at what it grew into and with the support from our club we were able to put together a wonderful event for everyone that attended.
Absolutely awesome!!!
 
SAS has put together a special edition of our e-newsletter called ‘Event Horizon’ please go to the website and download a copy at: http://sas.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/SAS-EH-July-2017-small.pdf
 
Below are some images of us in our bright yellow Star Staff t-shirts, we all had an fantastic time,
​but very busy…

So who were all these amazing speakers, first of all there was Dr Duane Hamacher who gave a very interesting and fascinating talk on ‘Aboriginal Astronomy’, http://aboriginalastronomy.blogspot.com.au
  
Then Mark Gee who’s a renowned New Zealand astro-photographer, who showed and explained how he takes his stunning wide field images of the night sky. http://theartofnight.com

Dr David Malin then gave us a bit of history into how humans have recorded what they see and how important it is for astro-photographers to stand out from the crowd with their astro-images. https://www.davidmalin.com
​

Dr Fred Watson from Siding Springs Observatory gave a talk on light pollution; he’s also such a lovely man who took time out to be in a photo with us girls, we were all thrilled :-) http://www.fredwatson.com.au
​

Then there was Dr Katie Mack, who had people a little bit scared of the future with her predictions,
​but assured us that the universe would be all Ok :-)
 http://www.astrokatie.com

And of course Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, well what can I say about Dr Karl, he’s just amazing with all his space facts that makes science just fun for everyone to enjoy. http://drkarl.com

And then there was Jamie Anderson from Gilmour Space Technologies from the Gold Coast, explaining the challenge of building rockets here in Australia. https://www.spaceflightacademy.com.au
 
Machaela Jeffrey gave us an overview of the current operations of ESA’s operation here in Australia with the same set of problems that Jamie has with getting support for the space industry here in Australia…hopefully it will change in the near future.
 
But that was not all; our own Dylan O’Donnell gave a wonderful presentation on how he takes his beautiful images and shared a lot of his knowledge with everyone with a few excellent tips and secrets to help people take better images of the night sky, great presentation Dylan! http://deography.com/byron-bay-observatory/

One of the highlights goes to a young lady called Jade Rushwood from Bryon Bay High School, who gave an excellent presentation on ‘Jupiter and its moons orbits’ which was very inspirational, because she spent so much time observing and recording the events.

​Jade was rewarded with a resounding applause and given a brand new Australian Geographic telescope to help with her new discoveries in the night sky.

One of the local schools the Bryon Community Primary School set up an astronomy display that was lovely.
 Bryon Community Primary School: http://www.bcps.org.au

Some of the wonderful sponsors at Star Stuff, Celestron, BIntel and Australian Geographic
Australian Geographic http://www.australiangeographic.com.au
Celestron Telescopes: https://www.celestron.com
BIntel: https://www.bintel.com.au

Please find the link to my other blog that shows the solar prominence, which was on display during the Star Stuff at: 
http://www.mystardustobservatory.com/astro-blog/-solar-prominence-on-display-for-star-stuff-astronomy-event

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) stands out prominently at the moment in our beautiful dark skies as a large cloudy patch and it’s often mistaken just for that by newcomers looking at the night sky…
 
This irregular type galaxy is one of the two satellite galaxies that are gravitationally bound to our own Milky Way galaxy and is approximately 180,000 light years away from us; the other one is the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC).
 
Here in the land down under they are nearly always on display as they are circumpolar and rotate around our south celestial pole. I should rephrase that and say we on earth rotate, but we don’t usually say that :-)
 
Image was taken with a Canon 70D camera and Canon 70-200mm f2.8 lens set at f3.2, which was attached to the top of a tracking Meade LX200 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope at my Stardust Observatory. Exposures were 30x1 minute subs and 20x1 minute darks with ISO2000, then stacked in DSS and processed in PS CS4.

The first quarter Moon is a really excellent phase for you to look at the Moon through your telescope, as all along the terminator line many of the lunar features like the stunning craters, mountains and seas are thrown into sharp relief by the light from the Sun.
 
There is an optical feature that you can view at this phase and it’s one of the famous lunar X’s, but you’ll have to be quick to see it as it’s only on show for about 4 hours, after that the whole area will be lit up by the Sun and the phenomenon will be gone!
 
It’s really just an optical phenomena caused by the Suns light falling onto the rims of the three craters, Blanchinus, La Caille and Purbach. (You’ll see the lunar X near just coming into view on the terminator line on the marked image)
 
These images were taken at a club viewing night with my Meade 8inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a Canon 700D camera at prime focus. Exposure times were 1/250th second and ISO 400 and their were 10 images sacked in Registax6 and processed in PS CS4.

Centaurus A is a very large and peculiar galaxy in the Constellation of Centuarus. It appears to be a giant elliptical that has recently merged with a barred spiral galaxy which is why it has those amazing dark dust lanes…it’s also affectionately know as the Hamburger Galaxy :-)
 
This is the galaxy that SAS members Peter Marples and Greg Bock found there last supernova in on the 8th February 2016, which was designated SN2016adj
If you would like to know more about the BOSS supernova team then please go to there website at:
 http://www.bosssupernova.com
​
The images were taken with a Meade LX200 10 inch telescope with an f6.3 focal reducer at prime focus at my Stardust Observatory at Leyburn at the end of February 2017. There were 20x2 minute subs and 10x2 minute dark frames using ISO2500, images were stacked in DSS and processed in PS CS4 using a Canon 70D SLR camera.

~ The Occultation of the star Regulus by the Moon 11th-12th February 2017 ~
 
I raced home from our last SAS meeting on the 11th February to capture this lunar occultation with the bright star Regulus; Regulus is the alpha star in the constellation of Leo (The lion).
 
My 127mm refractor telescope was already set up so it was just a matter of very quickly aligning the mount and grabbing the camera…all went well and I shot off the first images just as the Moon was approaching the star.
 
I was so surprised to see how tiny this 1st magnitude star looked beside the behemoth body of the Moon and had to play around a lot with the settings in the camera to capture some images where the star could be seen in the photos.
 
Regulus disappeared (at the lower right in the photo) at exactly 11.41pm (AEST) and it took over an hour for the Moon to pass in front of the star, at 12.50am (AEST) it reappeared in a burst of starlight at the lower left on the eastern limb. I continued to take some images, as the Moon kept moving away from Regulus.
 
To record the event, I had to overexpose the images of the Moon to capture the star Regulus and then take some more images of the Moon at the correct exposure, so these images above are composite photos to show the Moon closing in on Regulus, and then moving away from the star.
 
Images taken with a Canon 700D SLR camera, with multiple exposures and ISO settings, I also stacked 15 images of the Full Moon in Registax6 to bring out the detail on the lunar surface.

~ Jupiter with it’s four Galilean moons also on the 12th February 2017 ~
 
I also turned the telescope onto Jupiter that was rising in the east at 2am and again took two sets of images with different exposures: one set for the body of the planet and another set with a longer exposure to capture the Galilean moons so I could put them together to capture the view that was in the eyepiece.
 
The wide view of the Jupiter system nearly filled the whole frame in the Canon 700D camera, exposure times for the body of Jupiter were 1/30th second and ISO400, the exposure times for the four Galilean moons with Ganymede, Europa, Io and Callisto was 1 second and ISO 1600. I also used a 2x Barlow lens attached to the T-mount.
 
I opened both images up in PS CS4 and combined both images to make this composite image of the view as seen through the telescope.
I was so surprised at the view through the refractor as I usually use my Meade 8 or 10 inch telescope to image the planets...so it shows to try all your equipment when it comes to taking pictures of the night sky :-)

This week we have the Magic Millions Horse Event being held here on the Gold Coast, unbeknown to a lot of these entrepreneurs, there’s also a stunning horsey show going on in our heavens above :-)

You will find this remarkable dark nebula not far from the bright star Alnitak, which is one of the three stars that make up the belt of Orion…It’s a swirling cloud of dark gases and dust that looks like a horses head or the Loch Ness monster if you come from Scotland...
 
The dark shape is caused by thick dust blocking out the starlight from behind the nebula, 
​mainly from the bright star Sigma Orionis.
 
I’ve processed the nebula a bit differently this time by using one of the artistic filters in Photoshop (dry brush) to make the image look more like a painting…just something a bit different.
 
Image taken with a 80mm refractor telescope and a Canon 700D camera on top of a tracking LX200 10inch Meade telescope at my Stardust Observatory at Leyburn, there were 25x 7-minute subs and 10x 7-minute darks, ISO 1600.  Images were stacked in DSS and processed in PS CS4.

In the early hours of yesterday morning (7th April) Comet 252P/Linear was still making its way through the constellation of Ophiuchus and came close to the globular star cluster M14. You can also see to the top of the image the other very faint globular star cluster NGC 6366, that lies 3 degrees southwest of M14.
 
There is also a wide field image where you can just make out the green colour of the comet close by the rich star fields of our Milky Way galaxy. The planets Mars and Saturn also make a lovely acute triangle with the brilliant star Antares that’s in Scorpius…so there’s a lot going on in this part of the sky at the moment :-)
 
Images taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Canon 70-200 mm lens set 200mm; exposure times were 45 seconds and ISO 400 at F2.8. Wide Field image taken with a 17-85mm lens at 17mm, exposure time was one and a half minutes at F5.6 and ISO 2000.
 
Processing Picture:
There were multiple images with dark frames stacked in DSS (Free software, Deep Sky Stacker) and processed in Photoshop… the reason for doing this is to reduce any noise (from the camera) in the pictures so you can bring out some more of the detail.
 

~ You can just make out the green colour of Comet 252P/Linear to the left in my image ~

The weather here is Queensland for months now has been stormy, cloudy and raining so its been very frustrating trying to see and capture this lovely comet in the night sky.

To capture and see such a faint object like this you really need to have a very dark sky, at our last astronomy meeting in January it cleared enough for us to go outside and find the comet. I very quickly set up a tripod with a DSLR camera and using an 11-16mm lens and was able to capture an image.  But, the sky was just too light and there was some high cirrus cloud so the comet was very faint…but I did manage to get a shot!

The next evening I set up my tripod again at home and took some images, but the lights in my neighbourhood were just too bright…check out the lens flare!

Finally on the weekend of the 16th to 18th January we were blessed with a clear new Moon weekend at my Stardust observatory at Leyburn…Woohoo!

My aim was to capture the whole comet with its magnificent tail, I wanted to get a wide field image because the comet was going to be close to the beautiful Pleiades star cluster in Taurus. So I attached a Canon 40D SLR camera with a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 lens to the top of my tracking Meade LX200 telescope. I then proceeded to do a series of ten 5-minute images that would be stacked later in DSS to bring out the faint tail in the comet.

Opening the lens right up to f2.8 produced too much light, so I stopped it down to f3.5 and only used ISO 800. After getting my shots it was then a very frustrating process of trying to stack them in Deep Sky Stacker. 

Finally I found a wonderful YouTube video done by Doug Hubbell that explained how to stack on either the comet or the stars. My problem was I could not find the comet mode in the software…this video explained it all… I’m still working out how to combine the two images in PS; but I do like the star trail image, because it’s showing how quickly the comet's moving through the sky.

We only had a time frame of perhaps three weeks here in the Southern Hemisphere to observe the comet, but mostly it was cloudy, it then moved into the Northern Hemisphere sky where everyone has been enjoying it ever since. I’m so pleased I made the effort to go out to my observatory, even thought the forecast was for dreadful weather  :-)

YouTube video done by Doug Hubbell that explained how to stack on either the comet or the stars.

You will find this stunning red colour emission nebula in the tail of the Scorpion. Its distance from Earth is about 5,500 light years and the red color originates from an abundance of ionized hydrogen atoms.

It’s also know as the Bear Claw Nebula and it’s not marked on many star charts, so you’ll have to search a bit to find it :-)

Images were taken with a Meade 80mm triplet refractor at my Stardust Observatory at Leyburn. 12x5 minutes lights, 12x5 minute darks & 1x10 light and dark. Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and processed in PS CS4.

~ My Stardust Observatory ~
Under the Milky Way

This is my first try in making a time-lapse movie from hundreds of still images that lasted for over 5 hours on the evening of the 27th & 28th of June 2014...I hope you like it :-)

If you want to include trees in your time-lapse, it’s best to wait for a night when there’s hardly any wind, that’s because you want to make the turning sky the object of interest. If the trees are blowing about, this distracts from the beautiful movement of the night sky as our Earth rotates under the heavens.

What can you see in the movie: The camera lens was pointed to the south-western part of the sky where you can see the dark dust lanes and nebulosity of the Milky Way within the constellations of Carina, Vela, The Southern Cross, Centaurus & Corvus.

You will also see come into view the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) in the bottom left hand part of the images. This small satellite galaxy is gravitationally bound to our own galaxy at a distance of 170,000 light years away. The constellations of Scorpius and Sagittarius were starting to dive down into the western sky when unexpected cloud started to roll in…

If you would to try and make a movie with your time-lapse images then please download the doc below, I’ve outlined how I did it.
~ Please Note ~
This is just a guide for you as I’m only new to all this…best wishes, Noeleen :-)