1200mm

Galactic

2013-05-17T12:02:00.001+12:00

Galactic, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

My first "successful" Milky Way Panorama, compiled in cs6

Second Scratch

2013-05-13T11:54:00.001+12:00

Second Scratch, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

Seemed to be meteor central on Saturday night, including this Fluke! And it's friend over here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/astronomr/8732600711/in/photostream

Abandoned

2013-05-03T14:16:00.001+12:00

Abandoned, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

My first ruin

MIsty Dish

2013-04-24T05:33:00.001+12:00

MIsty Dish, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

One of my favorite shooting spots, on a misty night

International Dark Sky Week, Day 7

2013-04-18T13:55:00.001+12:00

International Dark Sky Week, Day 7, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

Here's what Light Pollution looks like ...

Foxton and the Cross

2013-04-17T22:23:00.001+12:00

Foxton and the Cross, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

More Foxton, till I get the new HDD plugged in

Fires in Foxton

2013-04-16T13:56:00.001+12:00

Fires in Foxton, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

On the way back from Wellington, spotted these on the side of the road ...

International Dark Sky Week, Day 6

2013-04-11T17:59:00.001+12:00

International Dark Sky Week, Day 6, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

I think this is eta Carinae

Brian Percival, Timelapses

2013-04-11T13:40:00.001+12:00

Well, hats off. I'm man enough to admit when I've been outdone. Some awesome work in this timelapse video shot in and around the Central Plateau of New Zealand.

https://vimeo.com/62980495

Stunning work, and very inspirational. I have no doubt as soon as ValHallen sees this we'll be planning another trip south!

Martins and Mercury

2013-04-11T06:05:00.001+12:00

Martins and Mercury, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

The morning recently have been very good, with Mercury rising about an hour before the Sun. Here's one of my favorite shooting spots when looking east, Martins Bay

International Dark Sky Week, Day 4

2013-04-09T12:50:00.001+12:00

International Dark Sky Week, Day 4, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

My Favorite Nebula, M42

The Cement Works

2013-04-09T12:49:00.001+12:00

The Cement Works, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

Stars, LMC, Ruins, that is all

International Dark Sky Week, Day 3

2013-04-08T14:09:00.001+12:00

International Dark Sky Week, Day 3, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

Day 3 of the week, the LMC - very prominent on any dark night, this is 21 shots, stacked in DSS

International Dark Sky Week Day 2

2013-04-07T12:41:00.001+12:00

International Dark Sky Week Day 2, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

Day 2's Effort is one of my favorite stars, the red supergiant, Antares - again shot and stacked, using tyhe 85mm 1.4 and DSS

Milky Way Composite

2013-04-06T17:37:00.001+13:00

Milky Way Composite, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

@ exposures + Photoshop :)

International Dark Sky Week Day 1/5

2013-04-06T11:38:00.001+13:00

International Dark Sky Week Day 1/5, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

International Dark Sky week is upon us!! 5-11 April, get out there and look up! Here's my first contribution, and the first stack done with the new, fast Samyang 85mm. This is the tail of Scorpio and the 2 clusters, Ptolemy's Cluster (M7) and the Butterfly Cluster(M6).

This was done with 11 Lights and one dark frame, 3.2 second exposures, ISO 3200. Stacked in DSS.

T-Shirts! Get your t-shirts here!

2013-04-02T16:16:00.003+13:00

Hey all, today I posted my first 2 t-shirt designs up on Redbubble for your viewing, and hopefully purchasing, pleasure! Here be the designs, one for the Northern Hemisphere and one for the much nicer Southern Hemisphere :)

Crux and Eta Carinae

2013-03-27T03:17:00.001+13:00

Crux and Eta Carinae, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

And friends. First chance I have had to start processing the Tongariro shots in any sort of orderly fashion!

Boingggggg!

2013-03-13T06:38:00.000+13:00

A huge thanks to Xeni Jardin and BoingBoing.net for featuring us and the photos, and especially for you kind words yesterday!

LMC

2013-03-12T22:37:00.001+13:00

LMC, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

10-Frame stack using Deep Sky Stacker, the damn lens kept slipping out of focus!

Liam Sleeps

2013-03-12T22:33:00.001+13:00

Liam Sleeps, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

We went nuts with Cameras, all Liam wanted to do was get to sleep!

On remembering to blog

2013-03-12T06:52:00.000+13:00

Hi all. Sorry about the hiatus, there's always a reason, or at least an excuse.

So we got back from Mount Tongariro day before yesterday, with sore muscles, some scratches in rather intimate places and about 4,000 shots of the sky and environs. These will take a while to process and upload, but for now, take my word for the awesomeness of the trip!

Here's where we were, on the ridge as shown in this map:

View Larger Map

So we climbed up from the hut, and that hurt. But once we got there and got the tents up, it was click click click all night. The pics are coming.

In other news:
What's this "Air and Darkness" thing?

Since Val won a photo competition, he's decided to push the photography a bit, with a view to the future, so he came up with a name for it (inspired by Harry Dresden no less) and so we get A&D:

Or maybe should be called ADD :)

Anyways will go back to collating thousands of photos now, post again soon (yeah right).

Quick Edit with a resource:

Light pollution on Google maps

Ngauruhoe Trails

2013-03-12T06:35:00.001+13:00

Ngauruhoe Trails, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

Second shot processed! A small and very grateful plug here - if you need to rent a camera in Auckland, you can't go past White Studios (http://www.whitestudios.co.nz/).

They rented me a 5d2 for the trip and were helpful, awesome and introduced me to Sammy, the cat :) Very cool peeps, awesome price, great support, highly recommended!

Ngauruhoe Rise

2013-03-12T06:32:00.001+13:00

Ngauruhoe Rise, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

The first shot from the Tongariro expedition. It was an awesome night to be shooting on a mountain! This is the first shot processed from the 5D Mk2 I hired for the occasion, and all I have to say is wow, full-frame camera is definitely in the cards sometime in the future!

We walked for 2 hours to get to the ridge we had chosen to shoot from, including some insane hill climb action, but totally worth it!! I will be processing and posting the shots, timelapses and stacks as I get time to do them, so watch this space!

Large Magellanic Cloud and Tarantula

2013-02-21T13:14:00.001+13:00

Large Magellanic Cloud and Tarantula, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

POTD 51

Am enjoying Deep Sky Stacker ... when it behaves itself :( More about this later.