[Leica] Astronomical images from Australia

[Douglas Barry]

Great stuff, Howard. You cannot beat really black sky. I went to Ile de 
Reunion in the Indian Ocean, and the following year to Sabah in Borneo, 
and the true black sky experience is utterly gobsmacking. The stars in 
these dark and darkish areas are just quite incredible. Anybody limited 
by earthbound ambitions should be forced to fully comprehend the majesty 
of the firmament that surrounds us. That said, Ile de Reunion beats 
Borneo into a cocked hat, so that's the trip that I'd recommend. Mind 
you, if you like native dances with enthusiastic locals, mainly 
pulchritudinous females, using very large logs to trap your feet as you 
hop in and out of them, then Borneo is your man. However, Irish dancing 
is great training to avoid these minor entrapments.

Douglas




On 10/05/2017 18:12, Howard L Ritter Jr wrote:
> G’day, Mates—
>
> I finally fulfilled an ambition of over 50 years and visited Australia, actually my first venture south of the equator. I attended something called the OzSky Star Safari <http://ozsky.org/> at a place called the Warrumbungles Mountain Motel outside the town of Coonabarabran, NSW, about 5 hrs NW of Sydney. It’s so far out in deep rural Oz that it’s only a few miles from the Australian National Observatory at Siding Spring, on the edge of Warrumbungle National Park.
>
> My first view of the southern Milky Way from a seriously dark site was astounding, and I highly recommend it as a bucket-list item! As a neophyte astrophotographer, I had taken a Nikon D810A (the one with the sensor glass that better passes deep red) and a couple of zooms. I used the camera on a tripod for the shorter time exposures, and with a tracking device that offsets the Earth’s rotation for the longer shots. I got several nice ones, posted to the Gallery <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/Gallery_001/>.
>
> C&C&Q welcomed.
>
> —howard
>
>
>
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-- 
Douglas
________
Douglas Barry
Inveresk,
Monkstown Road,
Monkstown,
Co. Dublin