Southern Skies photographed from Astro Observatories Western Australia site in the WA Wheatbelt.

I enjoyed a night of good old simple astronomy last night. A rarity in my current life of various commitments and having a young kid. Perfectly dark, clear and steady skies, a mix of astrophotography and visual star-hopping with a 8″ SCT telescope. Give a moderate telescope such as an 8″ dark skies and there is so much to see – Fornax galaxies, Ghost of Jupiter, the usual showpieces of various nebulas and galaxies. Absolutely fantastic. So dark.

Also, my backyard telescope has now been successfully relocated to significantly darker Wheatbelt skies, and wow the difference is immediately noticeable even in calibration images let alone actual astrophotography.

Oh, and that extremely thin crescent Moon at twilight with Venus – wow!

Looking forward to a third night tonight with the crescent Moon more prominent and lots of photography to be had.

A telescope moved to the darker skies of the WA Wheatbelt. The constellation of Orion overhead.

Visual astronomy, at 1:30am, fantastic dark and steady skies. It’s amazing what an 8″ telescope can do under good conditions.

Venus and the super thin crescent Moon, photographed from the WA Wheatbelt on 28th December 2019.