South Pacific Star Party shots

Hi



Took these shots last night at the South Pacific Star Party at Wiruna. I had to come home early due to an oncoming flu but at least I had one very good night.

Canon 7D with Tokina 11-16mm and a Sigma 50mm F1.4 tracked on a Polarie. The Polarie was aligned using the hotshoe polar metre only (brilliant liitle device). Very quick and basic processing using DPP



Milkway way rising









Emu Rising (early in the night)





Antares region (edit reprocessed)



Observing field around 11pm. It is very very dark and very cold !





Enjoy

John, as if we weren't jealous enough of the southern skies, you come along with these amazing images.

It has always been a dream to observe the southern skies from a dark site, your photos are making me more determined to do it.

Thanks for the beautiful images.

Paul

WOW, simply stunning shots there John, fantastic detail, that polarie looks like it does a great job.
Again, veeeery jealous of the skies you have there, :bigshock:

In the Antares region pic, it almost looks like the dark lanes are pillars of smoke rising around you, very 3D, amazing, I've never seen one like that before !!!

Great shots John,

How easy was the alignment?


I tried to align my astrotrac using those invisible stars in Octans and ended up saying bad words:-)


Michael.

Thanks Guys
A basic alignment is as simple a 1-2-3. The polar meter alone will get you pretty close. I can get 2-3 minute exposures with a 50mm lens on the celestial equator (effectively 80mm due to the crop sensor) and 3-5 minutes at 11mm with no problem at all which is all I require. It takes about 60 seconds to align. The polar scope is needed for longer focal lengths. The gentleman imaging beside me on Friday was regularly getting 8 minute exposures at 135mm using the polar scope.

Hey John, those are fabulous!