Astronomy

Video made from 1001 photos ( Canon 450D, 11mm Tokina f2.8 lens, ISO 1600, 8 second exposures). Photos taken from 10:03pm on 20 January through to 12:51am on 21 January 2026.

Video made from 1137 photos ( Canon 450D, 11mm Tokina f2.8 lens, ISO 1600, 8 second exposures). Quite a subdued aurora, but the green was visible to the naked eye for most of the night, and the pinks could be seen from time to time. Photos taken from 9:36pm on 12 November through to 12:48am on 13 November 2025.

The clouds got in the way of what would have been a fantastic aurora last night at Ricketts Point. At least between 8:17 and 9:12pm there were enough gaps in the cloud for us to see something. There is a good chance of more auroras tonight - but if only the clouds cooperate...

Kirsty and I first got to see Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) on 18 January.

Once the sun had set we walked down to Edwards Beach cliff top and started hunting for the comet. It took a little while for the sky to darken enough for us to see it without binoculars, but as the night progressed it got better and better!

Over the next few weeks it will get higher in the sky, so it will be above the horizon for longer after dark, but it will also fade as it travels further from the sun. The next week is going to be the best chance we have to see it without a telescope.

C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) from Red Bluff, Sandringham, Victoria. These were taken using a Canon 450D, and a Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 lens, between 9:45 and 9:55pm, Saturday 18 January. Exposures for the first four photos in the sequence below varied from 1 second to 3.2 seconds, with ISO varying between 800 and 1600. Easily naked eye tonight, but the camera was able to see more detail than I could as the comet sank into the murk above the horizon.

I was back at Edwards Beach cliff top, Sandringham, Victoria on the 19th to take some more photos of the comet. Photos 5 to 8 are from 9:52 - 9:55pm. The comet was easily visible from around 9:36 until 10pm. There were a few more people out tonight to get a glimpse.

On January 21 Richard Jones and I were back at Edward Beach cliff top. Photos 9 to 14  show that the comet is getting more diffuse, but has a much longer tail. It is visible for quite a bit longer. Apparently the head is breaking up, so there is every chance that it will become much harder to see soon.

The photos below are in chronological order.

Last night and this morning was fantastic at Ricketts Point!

This is a timelapse of 1800 8 second exposures on my Canon 450D DSLR, at ISO 1600, using a Tokina SD 11-16 F2.8 lens.

Conditions looked a bit dubious early in the evening, but persistence paid off with a spectacular display,

I started imaging at 10:22pm and ended at 3:29am, when the clouds returned. Well worth the windy conditions!

A late check of the aurora apps on my phone convinced me to head to Ricketts Point even though there was a half moon in the sky. I arrived just before dark, and there were already a few people there. More arrived over the next few hours. The strength of the moon played havoc with the view, but there were some periods of time where it was faintly visible to the naked eye. Most of the detail was only on my camera or my phone. This is a 2 hour timelapse, starting at 10pm. Canon 450D DSLR, 8 second exposures, ISO 1600, Tokina SD 11-16 F2.8 lens. Images were enhanced in Affinity Photo 2.

After a non-starter on the evening of 10 October, I went home to sleep for a couple of hours, and went back to Ricketts Point at 3am on Friday 11 October, buoyed by the excellent predictions of a G4 storm. It was definitely worth getting up!
This is a timelapse of the aurora of Friday 11 October 2024, 3:25am - 5:57am, taken with my Canon 450D DSLR. 8 second exposures, ISO 1600, using a Tokina SD 11-16 F2.8 lens. Images were enhanced in Affinity Photo 2, to improve details.

The aurora on Monday 12 August 2024 was great, even with a moon close to 50% full. When I went down to Ricketts Point around 7pm there was a hint of colour, but nothing spectacular. It got much better after 10pm. Green was easily seen, but there were times when red could also be seen with the naked eye. My Canon 450D DSLR camera was taking 8 second exposures at 1600 ISO, using an 11mm F2.8 lens, so it captured far more detail than I could see with the naked eye.

This is a timelapse of 40 minutes of 8 second ISO 1600 exposures, taken at Ricketts Point, Victoria, on a Canon 450D DSLR, starting at 10:04pm on 12 August 2024.

This is my first attempt at the Trifid Nebula, imaged on 17 June 2024. I feel that the centre is blown out too much, so in my next session I will drop the gain down to 150 and see how that goes. I was trying for an hour of data, but the clouds rolled in, and I had to end the session a bit earlier than I had hoped.
Skywatcher 350 goto, ZWO ASI2600MC PRO cooled to -15c, Starizona Nexus focal reducer, and ZWO Duo-Band filter.
51 minutes of 8 second exposures.
Gain: 200 for lights, flats and biases.
30 Biases (.001 seconds).
15 Flats (automated in N.I.N.A.).
Binning set to 1x1.
Flats taken using a white T-Shirt stretched over the front of the telescope and exposed to the light from my storage shed.
Moon: 10 days old
Bortle 5 skies.

Messier 20, The Trifid Nebula, was discovered by Charles Messier on June 5, 1764. Its name means 'three-lobe'.
The object is an unusual combination of an open cluster of stars, an emission nebula (the relatively dense, reddish-pink portion), a reflection nebula (the mainly blue portion), and a dark nebula (the apparent 'gaps' in the former that cause the trifurcated appearance). It is centered about 4100 light years from Earth.

(Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifid_Nebula)

The Antennae Galaxies are undergoing a galactic collision. These two galaxies are known as the Antennae Galaxies because the two long tails of stars, gas and dust ejected from the galaxies as a result of the collision resemble an insect's antennae. The tails are very faint in this image.

About 1.2 billion years ago, the Antennae were two separate galaxies. 900 million years ago, the Antennae began to approach one another. 600 million years ago, the Antennae passed through each other. 300 million years ago, the Antennae's stars began to be released from both galaxies. Today the two streamers of ejected stars extend far beyond the original galaxies, resulting in the antennae shape.

Within 400 million years, the Antennae's nuclei will collide and become a single core with stars, gas, and dust around it.

(Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antennae_Galaxies)

36 minutes of 8 second exposures
Gain: 200. No biases or flats
270 Lights (8 seconds) selected out of 311.
Binning set to 1x1
Moon: 74% full, Bortle 5 skies.

Messier 58 (also known as M58 and NGC 4579) is an intermediate barred spiral galaxy with a weak inner ring structure located within the constellation Virgo, approximately 68 million light-years away from Earth. It was discovered by Charles Messier on April 15, 1779 and is one of four barred spiral galaxies that appear in Messier's catalogue. M58 is one of the brightest galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. From 1779 it was arguably (though unknown at that time) the farthest known astronomical object until the release of the New General Catalogue in the 1880s

(Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_58)

On a cold and damp evening, before I changed over to taking images of galaxies and and globular clusters, I spent a few minutes on our nearest neighbour.

This was the best 700 images out of a total of 1000 taken, stacked in Affinity 2.

Roughly 90 minutes of 8 second exposures
Gain: 200 for lights and flats, 1 for biases
30 Biases (.001 seconds)
40 Flats (automated in N.I.N.A.)
440 Lights (8 seconds)
Binning set to 2x2
Flats taken using a white T-Shirt stretched over the front of the telescope and exposed to the light from my storage shed.
Moon: 8.2 days old, Bortle 5 skies.

NGC 4567 and NGC 4568 (nicknamed the Butterfly Galaxies or Siamese Twins) are a set of unbarred spiral galaxies about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. They were both discovered by William Herschel in 1784. They are part of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies.

These galaxies are in the process of colliding and merging with each other, as studies of their distributions of neutral and molecular hydrogen show, with the highest star-formation activity in the part where they overlap. However, the system is still in an early phase of interaction. In about 500 million years the galaxies will coalesce into a single elliptical galaxy.

(Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_4567_and_NGC_4568)

Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, I had a window last night for a couple of hours where I could see it between two large trees behind our house.

Roughly 50 minutes of 0.5 second exposures
Gain: 200 for lights and flats, 1 for biases
30 Biases (.001 seconds)
40 Flats (automated in N.I.N.A.)
1000 Lights (.5 seconds)
Binning set to 2x2
Flats taken using a white T-Shirt stretched over the front of the telescope and exposed to the light from my storage shed.
Moon: 8/. days old, Bortle 5 skies.

Omega Centauri is a globular cluster in the constellation of Centaurus that was first identified as a non-stellar object by Edmond Halley in 1677. Located at a distance of 17,090 light-years, it is the largest-known globular cluster in the Milky Way at a diameter of roughly 150 light-years. It is estimated to contain approximately 10 million stars, with a total mass of 4 million solar masses, making it the most massive known globular cluster in the Milky Way.

Omega Centauri is very different from most other galactic globular clusters to the extent that it is thought to have originated as the core remnant of a disrupted dwarf galaxy.

Around 150 AD, Greco-Roman writer and astronomer Ptolemy catalogued this object in his Almagest as a star on the centaur's back. German cartographer Johann Bayer used Ptolemy's data to designate this object "Omega Centauri" with his 1603 publication of Uranometria. Using a telescope from the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, English astronomer Edmond Halley rediscovered this object in 1677, listing it as a non-stellar object. In 1716, it was published by Halley among his list of six "luminous spots or patches" in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

Swiss astronomer Jean-Philippe de Cheseaux included Omega Centauri in his 1746 list of 21 nebulae, as did French astronomer Lacaille in 1755, whence the catalogue number is designated L I.5. It was first recognized as a globular cluster by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop in 1826, who described it as a "beautiful globe of stars very gradually and moderately compressed to the centre".

(Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Centauri)

Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, I had a window last night for a couple of hours where I could see it between two large trees behind our house.

Roughly 70 minutes of 4 second exposures
Gain: 200 for lights and flats, 1 for biases
30 Biases (.001 seconds)
40 Flats (automated in N.I.N.A.)
1060 Lights (4 seconds)
Binning set to 2x2
Flats taken using a white T-Shirt stretched over the front of the telescope and exposed to the light from my storage shed.
Moon: 7.3 days old, Bortle 5 skies.

The Tarantula Nebula was observed by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille during an expedition to the Cape of Good Hope between 1751 and 1753. Considering its distance of 160,000 light-years, this is an extremely luminous non-stellar object. Its luminosity is so great that if it were as close to Earth as the Orion Nebula, the Tarantula Nebula would cast visible shadows. It is the most active starburst region known in the Local Group of galaxies.

The name Tarantula Nebula arose in the mid 20th century from its appearance in deep photographic exposures.

(Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantula_Nebula)

I checked my phone before heading to bed, to see if the aurora had shown up, and yes, it had. So, we headed off to the Red Bluff cliffs and took a number of shots on my Canon 450D and a Tokina F2.8 lens, at ISO 1600. Most images at 10 seconds.  I think that I can safely say that this has ticked viewing a good aurora off my bucket list. In fact, it is unlikely that I will see the like of this again, as this aurora is among the top 20 Great Storms of the past 500 years (see the spaceweather.com article from 17 May 2024).

Aurora Australis, from Sandringham, Victoria, Australia, 10pm Saturday 11 May. First time in 50 years that I've seen the aurora, and it was even better than these images  when we were walking down to the beach!

At 12:30am on May 12th I thought I would head to the park across the road from our home in Sandringham, Victoria, to see it the aurora was still active. It certainly was!

Canon 450D, Tokina F2.8 lens, ISO 1600. First three images at 2 seconds, the remaining images at 10 seconds. 

1040 seconds of 8 second lights

Skywatcher 350 goto, ZWO ASI2600MC PRO (cooled to -15c), Starizona Nexus focal reducer, and ZWO Duo-Band filter.
Telescope and camera controlled by N.I.N.A.
30 2.0 second flats, 27 4.0 second darks, and 30 0.1 second biases.
Gain set to 300 for lights, darks and flats, and 1 for biases.
Binning set to 2x2.
Flats taken using a white T-Shirt stretched over the front of the telescope and exposed to the light from my storage shed.
No moon, Bortle 5 skies.

I went through the Lights in ASIFitsView and deleted the images that had been affected by the occasional gust of wind shaking the telescope, stacked and processed the images on a PC in Siril, and then transferred to a Mac and ran them through Starnet++, and Affinity Photo 2 (with RC-Astro's NoiseXterminator plugin).

Messier 4 or M4 was discovered by Philippe Loys de Chéseaux in 1745 and catalogued by Charles Messier in 1764, It was the first globular cluster in which individual stars were resolved.

M4 is conspicuous in even the smallest of telescopes as a fuzzy ball of light. It appears about the same size as the Moon in the sky. It is one of the easiest globular clusters to find, being located only 1.3 degrees west of the bright star Antares, with both objects being visible in a wide-field telescope. Modestly sized telescopes will begin to resolve individual stars, of which the brightest in M4 are of apparent magnitude 10.8.

M4 is a rather loosely concentrated cluster of class IX and measures 75 light-years across. It features a characteristic "bar" structure across its core, visible to moderate sized telescopes. The structure consists of 11th-magnitude stars and is approximately 2.5' long and was first noted by William Herschel in 1783. At least 43 variable stars have been observed within M4.

M4 is approximately 6,000 light-years away, making it the closest globular cluster to the Solar System. It has an estimated age of 12.2 billion years.

(Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_4)

2864 seconds of 8 second lights

Skywatcher 350 goto, ZWO ASI2600MC PRO (cooled to -15c), Starizona Nexus focal reducer, and ZWO Duo-Band filter.
Telescope and camera controlled by N.I.N.A.
30 2.0 second flats, 27 4.0 second darks, and 30 0.1 second biases.
Gain set to 300 for lights, darks and flats, and 1 for biases.
Binning set to 2x2.
Flats taken using a white T-Shirt stretched over the front of the telescope and exposed to the light from my storage shed.
No moon, Bortle 5 skies.

I went through the Lights in ASIFitsView and deleted the images that had been affected by the occasional gust of wind shaking the telescope, stacked and processed the images on a PC in Siril, and then transferred to a Mac and ran them through Starnet++, and Affinity Photo 2 (with RC-Astro's NoiseXterminator plugin).

Messier 83 or M83, also known as the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy and NGC 5236, is a barred spiral galaxy approximately 15 million light-years away in the constellation borders of Hydra and Centaurus. Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille discovered M83 on 17 February 1752 at the Cape of Good Hope. Charles Messier added it to his catalogue of nebulous objects (now known as the Messier Catalogue) in March 1781.

It is one of the closest and brightest barred spiral galaxies in the sky, and is visible with binoculars. It has a diameter of about 118,000 light-years.

(Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_83)

1016 seconds of 4 second lights

Skywatcher 350 goto, ZWO ASI2600MC PRO (cooled to -15c), Starizona Nexus focal reducer, and ZWO Duo-Band filter.
Telescope and camera controlled by N.I.N.A.
30 2.0 second flats, 27 4.0 second darks, and 30 0.1 second biases.
Gain set to 300 for lights, darks and flats, and 1 for biases.
Binning set to 2x2.
Flats taken using a white T-Shirt stretched over the front of the telescope and exposed to the light from my storage shed.
No moon, Bortle 5 skies.

I went through the Lights in ASIFitsView and deleted the images that had been affected by the occasional gust of wind shaking the telescope, stacked and processed the images on a PC in Siril, and then transferred to a Mac and ran them through Starnet++, and Affinity Photo 2 (with RC-Astro's NoiseXterminator plugin).

IC 2944, also known as the Running Chicken Nebula, is an open cluster with an associated emission nebula found in the constellation Centaurus, near the star λ Centauri. It features Bok globules, which are frequently a site of active star formation. However, no evidence for star formation has been found in any of the globules in IC 2944.

The nebulae is 6,500 light years from earth.

(Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC_2944)

1 hour of 8 second lights, plus 100 bias frames.
21 April 2024. Waxing Gibbous moon (12.5 days old)
Skywatcher 350 goto, ZWO ASI2600MC PRO, Starizona Nexus focal reducer, and ZWO Duo-Band filter.
Telescope and camera controlled by N.I.N.A. Image processed on a Mac in Siril, Starnet++, and Affinity Photo 2 (with RC-Astro's NoiseXterminator plugin).

This is cropped quite a bit, as I was seeing a faint halo further out in the image, that I wasn't able to remove in processing. Not sure if this was caused by the moon, a street light, or was a by-product of the vignetting which I am seeing in the corners of my images.

... and this is the same data after going back to the original frames and reprocessing, trying to bring out more detai. Some parts look better, while other areas appear to have been pushed too far. I've still got a lot to learn :-)

 The Horsehead Nebula is a small dark nebula in the constellation Orion, and is roughly 1,375 light-years from Earth. It is very difficult to see through telescopes in Melbourne because of light polution, but lots of exposures, and a narrowband filter that removes the worst effects of light polution can make it show up in photographs. As Orion is so close to the horizon at dusk now I will have to wait until later in the year to have another opportunity to get a better image. 

1 hour of 4 second lights, and 100 biases.
21 April 2024. Waxing Gibbous moon (12.5 days old)
Skywatcher 350 goto, ZWO ASI2600MC PRO, Starizona Nexus focal reducer, and ZWO Duo-Band filter.
Telescope and camera controlled by N.I.N.A.

Centaurus A is a galaxy in the constellation of Centaurus. It was discovered in 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop from his home in Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the closest radio galaxies to Earth.

Orion Nebula, April 2024. Starting to sink into the West now, so I won't get much of an opportunity to take more images of it until later in the year...

There was a brief clearing in the clouds on Monday evening, so I grabbed the chance to capture the moon and test out the work I've been doing to improve the motor guiding on my telescope. Very happy now, and looking forward to some clearer weather...

This is a combination of 100 1.334ms images taken using a ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera, Starizona Nexus 0.75 focal reducer, and a Skywatcher 14" Goto Dobsonian telescope, stacked and edited in Affinity Photo 2.

Now that I've retired I might manage to get a bit more time out with my telescope. It will take a bit of time to relearn some techniques for taking photos through the telescope, but this one's a good start :-)

Single frame prime focus photo taken using a Canon 450D and a Skywatcher 14" Goto Dobsonian telescope.

Mars was closest in early October, but I didn't have an opportunity to try to take some photos until early November

This image was taken using a ZWO ASI 290MC Colour camera and Teleview 2.5x Powermate, connected to a Skywatcher 14" Goto Dobsonian telescope. 12,294 frames were captured in 63 seconds, and the video was processed in PiPP, Autostakkert, Registax, and Photoshop.

Jupiter and Saturn both reached opposition in July this year. This is the point when the Earth is pretty much in a direct line between a planet and the Sun, so we get a  fully illuminated view of the planet.

I haven't had the telescope out much this year, but the nights were clear, and the seeing was pretty good, so it was too good an opportunity to miss...

The black disc on Jupiter is the shadow of Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons. You can see Ganymede just to the left of the shadow.

Both of these images were taken using a ZWO ASI 290MC Colour camera and Teleview 2.5x Powermate, connected to a Skywatcher 14" Goto Dobsonian telescope. Roughly 30 seconds of video was taken for each planet, at 15 frames per second, and the videos were processed in PiPP, Autostakkert, Registax, and Photoshop.

We were down at Northcote High School helping out with their latest astronomy evening, showing people Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn, but when the moon rose over the buildings my telescope spent pretty much the rest of the evening pointing at it. Anyone with a camera on their phone was able to get great photos, even allowing for a lack of contrast - there were no shadows to highlight the craters and mountains.

What a difference 37 years makes! Back when I was first trying to take photos of the moon, using a telescope borrowed from the science department at Burwood Teachers College, and an old Pentax SLR, the focus was always hit and miss, and I could never tell whether the photos were going to be any good until the film had been developed. Now just about anyone can get much better photos, just by holding their phone up to the eyepiece, and if the shot isn't quite right you can take another one straight away.

Here's one that I took on 18 August with my phone.

Beautiful and clear night on 30 May 2016!

On 22 May Mars was the closest to Earth that it has been for 10 years, and I've had the best views of it that I've ever seen. Saturn and Jupiter also being in the sky at the same time is an added bonus. These were photos I took through my telescope tonight. They've not been processed at all - I wanted to keep them as close as possible to what I actually saw through the eyepiece.

I managed to get a good set of shots of the last total lunar eclipse in Australia until 2018.

20 minutes later the clouds rolled in, so all in all a pretty successful night...

In 2014 I started taking timelapse sequences, mainly when I have been using my telescope at the Astronomical Society of Victoria Leon Mow Dark Sky Site. I am still experimenting with settings, but I am quite pleased with the results so far...

11:06pm 19 December- 03:00am 20 December 2014. Canon  450D, 40 second exposures, F2.8, ISO 1600, focal length 11mm

After a number of years of casual use of the 10 inch Dobsonian telescope that I built back in 2001, I dropped in at the Camberwell showroom of the Binocular and Telescope Shop to have a look at Meade's Lightbridge range of telescopes. I had read Richard Brown's review of the 16 inch model on the IceInSpace site and I wanted to see if it was as good as it sounded. There didn't seem to be all that much information / reviews online about it, apart from IceInSpace, and another review by Chris Thomase on the Cloudy Nights site. What I did read seemed all good, and within a few weeks I was the proud owner of a 16 inch telescope - with far more light-gathering power than I could possibly have imagined owning back when I was borrowing a Celestron C8 back during my days at Teachers College.

I built a Dobsonian telescope in 2001, when I was getting back into astronomy. In October 2007 I bought a 16 inch Meade Lightbridge. Many of the modifications that I made to the Meade are based on my experience with the 10 inch telescope. You can read about the Meade Lightbridge modifications here. I've since sold the Lightbridge, and have bought a Celestron CPC 9.25" Schmidt Cassegrian, as I am starting to experiment with photography of the planets and some of the brighter deep space objects.