Prospecting the Night skies this week...

There's a little "gold" in the skies tonight.  The Moon and Jupiter are now drifting apart from one-another this evening.  They'll drift further apart over the next few days as the moon passes Mars in the sky and then catches up to Saturn in a further few days.  Mars literally looks like an orange-red star right now in the wee hours of the morning.  On April 3, Mars and Saturn will be sitting alongside one another in the sky (if I'm reading my astro-software correctly.  The weather will be starting to cool then, allowing for clearer viewing opportunities.  Folks in the goldfields ought to get some clear skies, as usual. The evenings are quite balmy at the moment.  Just remember the no-scent Aeroguard if you're in the mosquito zone.

I had to drag Jupiter a little closer to the Moon for this photograph (it was out of the frame), but this was my driveway view (from the grubby skies of Sydney) last night. Technically this was three photographs... one of the Moon, one of Jupiter, and another to reveal the three visible moons of Jupiter.



The Moon last night (I had to drag the image of Jupiter a bit closer to get it in the same frame)...

I'm just waiting for my detecting buddy to get back (he's been deployed overseas) but I'll try to get some decent prospecting related shots up her on the boards as soon as I can spare the time to get out there.  

Was a bit of a shame that the Super/Blue/Blood Moon was overcast.  I stopped at the Bellbird Lookout on Bell's Line Of Road (the road to the Goldfields via the Sydney Western Suburbs.  I waited in my car for a few hours and there were countless angry people turning up there with their cameras and then departing as the rain started up again. There's another Total Lunar Eclipse in July (July 28, 2018) but it probably won't be a Super Moon.  We seem to have so much back luck with the weather in Sydney whenever a major celestial event occurs.


The view of misery at the Bellbird Lookout at Kurrajong Heights, NSW during the Blood Moon a couple of weeks ago.

My wife sometimes comes with me as my safety buddy but she's busy dealing with a show at the moment that she's working on. I'm just in the process of getting my car serviced and then I'll try to get some detecting squeezed in as soon as I can directly afterwards.  Surely some of the other members here have been out detecting since the New Year... It seems a little quiet here lately.

Nice pics nero.
I still have not been able to get a clear shot of Jupiter with the cloud bands and the moons.
If I expose for the moons Jupiter is over exposed. If I expose for the planet the moons do not appear.

Hi Nero
We did get some cloud early on for the eclipse but cleared up perfectly later on so had a great view of the big red moon,just didn't have the equipment to photograph it.

adrian ss wrote:Nice pics nero.
I still have not been able to get a clear shot of Jupiter with the cloud bands and the moons.
If I expose for the moons Jupiter is over exposed. If I expose for the planet the moons do not appear.

I don't think it can be done.  The only method I can come up with is to take two pictures with one being over exposed.  Then merge them in Photoshop and erase the planet in the overexposed shot, replacing it with the correctly exposed one.  At least with Saturn there's no visible moons that i can see.  I haven't tried photographing Mars though. I saw it through the big telescope at the Sydney Observatory a couple of years ago but it wasn't overly impressive.


Overexposed (to reveal the moons) Vs underexposed (to reveal the planet details)

Whenever I'm driving through the goldfields, I'm often looking for locations that would be suitable for use as backgrounds for night shots.  But usually, after the sun sets, I just want to eat dinner and get some sleep after all the walking, lifting and digging.  There's occasionally a stark tree standing alone on a hilltop that would make a great foreground for a shot of the Milky Way.  I assume those dead trees were struck by lightning in that exposed position.


A dead tree overlooking the caves in the NSW Abercrombie Goldfield district.

Awesome Nero.    Thanks. What are your thoughts on "Nibiru" (Planet X) fact or fiction? Cheers.

Good luck out there

JW

Well something tipped Earth on its axis and changed the coastlines dramatically a very long time a go.

There are stories of a bright large "hairy star" that approached close to the earth that caused earthquakes and floods and fire.
I sometimes think this may have been Venus that may have once been a moon of Jupiter?? or a planet pulled out of orbit by Jupiter or Saturn  causing it to come close to the earth. .........Well that is no more or less likely than the notion of Nibiru.

Also something approached close to Uranus to tip it to an extreme axis of spin and impacted Miranda.
So for sure there has been some big nasties penetrating our solar system at some time or another......So maybe Nibiru is stalking us.

I may be preaching to the converted here but have you tried RegiStax for image processing?
It is very powerful freeware that can produce world quality images.

Very nice photos Bud.

Seems to be Hacking probs with RegiStax. I will leave it alone.

That's sad!
I have RegiStax6 and it runs without issue!
Ps, all hackers need to be terminated with extreme predacious!
Shoot them all as they do no good to anyone.

Nero,

Great shots mate. love your passion. I also love shooting the stars against natural foreground subjects,here is one of a snow gum (lit up) from the southern ACT.

I have the fun job of teaching people to do night sky photography in the Canberra/Snowy mountains area through my photo business!



Regards

Ian

I dunno? When I take star shots all I get is grey sky, fuzzy stars, zero colour. So come on mate; Ya didn't take that with a brownie box. what photo shop did ya use. What exp, lens and f stop. Did ya haf ta track the sky for a couple of hours?

adrian ss wrote:I dunno? When I take star shots all I get is grey sky, fuzzy stars, zero colour. So come on mate; Ya didn't take that with a brownie box.  what photo shop did ya use. What exp, lens and f stop. Did ya haf ta track the sky for a couple of hours?

Hi Adrian - no I didn't take that with a box Brownie although I remember my Nanna showing me one when I was little, imagine they would be a collectors item now.

I took this with my Nikon D810, a 20 second exposure was used at ISO 3200. My 20 mm Niokn lens was stopped down to f3.5. The image was processed with minimal edits in lightroom, it is a single image, not a composite.

The tree was lit with a lume cube using a gel intended to light balance with the light balance applicable to clear night skies.

If you like we could link up if you were interested in getting shots lik this but I am not sure if you use a DSLR, I do recall you mentioning the P900.

Cheers

Ian

Yes I have a P900 and a couple of other DSLR.
Resolution of this cam is ok but not great.
The first pic of the moon I ever took at age 16 was through a Kodak 620 box camera and a lens I scrounged out of a buggered set of military binoculars.It was The same cam  mum and dad used for their wedding photo's.I processed my own pics then. I still have this cam and it still works. The camera body is made out of compressed cardboard and has ground glass framing screens.

Willo wrote:Nero,

Great shots mate. love your passion.  I also love shooting the stars against natural foreground subjects,here is one of a snow gum (lit up) from the southern ACT.

I have the fun job of teaching people to do night sky photography in the Canberra/Snowy mountains area through my photo business!



Regards

Ian

I love the way that this clearly shows the Magellanic clouds, Sky so clear and heavens so bright.