Blue Mountains Observatory

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Blue Mountains Observatory

[Public Domain] 27 Aug 2014 Dylan O'Donnell
CATEGORY : Astrophotography
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This weekend I had the pleasure of visiting the Blue Mountains Observatory in Leura, NSW. Unfortunately despite staying for 3 nights during the moonless lunar phase, the site was covered by cloud, fog and rain the entire time. The only exception was 1 hour around 1am on the second night, by which time I was sufficiently inebriated enough to make operating my camera equipment fairly challenging. I managed to get a few decent shots that even the real (qualified) astronomers told me they enjoyed. This star trail photo is an old fashioned 11 minute single exposure at 16mm / f.28 / ISO 1600. There is some cloud behind the dome illuminated by Katoomba light pollution but the middle of the image is the glow of the milky way itself which runs horizontally across the image. I will post another version without star trails soon.

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