Nightscapes & Startrails

[OzEclipse]

I have previously posted that I am running a course on nightscape photography. We had a field trip on Thursday May 30, then Wednesday June 5 was also clear. I invited the group up to the dark site, set up my 18" dob and offered them a bonus field trip.

Only 3/7 could make it that night.

Here are a couple of pictures of the evening

Joe

[OzEclipse]

One more from Wednesday night, one of the participants, Sari, was shooting it the field. Hence the tongue in cheek title, Sari Sari night. She moved a little during the exposure, I was just capturing and didn't ask her to stand still. Her camera and red flashlight made a nice illuminated patch on the ground around her. It's all one exposure however the site is very dark and so I've had to really stretch the landscape hence the landscape is much noisier than the sky.

[bladekeeper]

These are beautiful, Joe!

Man, I wish I was close enough to attend the course!

[Harshil]

Beautiful Image!

[OzEclipse]

Thank you Bryan and Harshil for you comments. I wish you were close enough too. And thank you to all the thankers!

When I first discussed this course with the new centre director she said she was interested in hearing any proposals for new approaches to running courses and new course ideas. With the success of this one I have put a whole themed program to her that we offer this course twice a year this year and twice next. I'll also offer a time-lapse course that builds on this.

I'll form a project group out of the courses who continue to meet and develop bodies of work, weekend or longer guided shoots. If all is going well and we have lots of interest, I'll sponsor a proposal in next years application round(for 2021) to curate and mentor the group to do a multimedia exhibition incorporating both flat art and projected moving images to open in the centres gallery. The great part of this is that we can just gradually roll it out, if interest drops off we can just stop without any financial loss.

And here is one more..

This one captured in my Pentax K1, ISO 40,000, 14mm f2.8, 20s.

Cheers

Joe

[Don Quixote]

Wow, Joe.
And Dang !
What a night !

I am also of fan of your class. Wish I could be there.
Thank you for sharing here.

[Bigzmey]

Beautiful shots Joe! I hope you course takes off. How far is the location from nearest city?

[OzEclipse]

Hi Andrey, Mark Harshill and Bryan and all the thankers,

Thanks for your comments. This has been incredibly successful so far.

Andrey-
The photos were taken on the second field trip which was at my regular dark sky site on my mates property, 10km north of Yass, New South Wales and 50km NNW of Canberra. The first field trip was at a rail bridge about 5km south of their. I chose the area for the great skies and also because I have a good handle on when there will be clear sky for the area using the EC model.

The course wound up last week. The participants put in their course evaluation forms. I've always scored well in these end of course evaluations but this was a Nadia Comăneci moment straight 10/10 from every participant. All indicated interest in further related activities.

The upshot is that Photoaccess have decided to push forward with this astrophotography theme. There will be a program of four guided one night field trips in a 70km radius of Canberra between now and year end. Participants can buy a pass and choose any three. Then we are looking at a range of full weekend options from location campouts to rural farm stays.

We're looking at offering the foundation nightscape course again later this year, and a time-lapse course next year with long term aim is to curate a multimedia nightscape / time-lapse exhibition in 2021.


Cheers

Joe

[The Happy Parrot]

Congratulations on your Nadia Comaneci gold medal moment Joe! I knew from your images there was something graceful about you.

Seriously, I wish there we had something similar around here, I'd sign up in a minute.

Wonderful Milky Way images BTW.