Stargazing Site with Amazing Landscape (NSW)

[elmkid]

Hi. Im from Malaysia. My buddy and I are coming to NSW for stargazing/doing timelapse of MW anywhere between 3rd-13th September. For now I guess we are pretty ok with the destinations (we will be travelling from Blue Mountains to Coona). But I can't find infos of where exactly we should be going, in terms of having
monumental/great landscape as foreground as well as capturing MW. This is the hard part; I don't know the co-ordinate of the landscapes. There's no point of having great landscape if I have to point my camera to north, as the MW is at southern part. You get the idea of what Im trying to achieve here..

Few other important questions;
- Whats the best spot to shoot observatories as foreground with MW as background? how strict are the observatories for permission?
- Is it easy to hop on hop off by public transport from Blue Mountains - Coona? Should we rent a car?
- In terms of the weather, how should i plan the schedule? Plan when we are already in Australia?
- Mobile phone connected to internet is quite important. Can I get the connection in the remote areas?
- Place to avoid (always bad weather/spooky experiences/dangerous/etc).


Lastly, anyone wanna join us?


Tq guys.


Zahid.

[elmkid]

anyone?

[stardust steve]

Hi. I am from interstate and am unfamiliar with the landmarks. I can suggest a trip out to the Parkes Radio Telescope. It is quite bright when lit up so taking a photo can be a tad challenging but it is an awesome sight. The sheer size is breathtaking. Here is a bit of info http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/
And here is a pic i took while there earlier this year. You can park your car and legally walk up close to it with in 100 meters or so. Close enough for a pic.
I hope you get some great images while you are there.

[iceman]

Hi Zahid

Sounds like you're going to have a great time. You'll definitely need to rent a car. You won't be able to get around easily on public transport, especially at nights and the places you'll want to go where they are away from main populated areas.

And blue mountains to Coona is like 4-6 hours, and you won't find public transport to easily take you there.

I'm planning a trip to Coona myself around 13th September so I'll be hoping to get to the observatories too. I'm not sure how open they are after the fires. Might be best to try and give them a call.

Weather might be tricky. Out west where you may be is usually ok, but if you go to the Coast it could be good or bad and best planned when you're here I would guess.

Get a Telstra SIM in Australia and you'll have the best chance of getting coverage in remote areas. It won't be perfect in all areas but around most populated spots at blue mountains, Parkes and Coona you won't have trouble.

Good luck!

[elmkid]

hi steve. tq for the response.

parkes, mount kaputar and siding spring are definately on top of our list.
we'll share some images when we get back home later.
tq again.

[elmkid]

mike, fingers crossed that we'll get clear skies during our stay soon. we arent going to the coast at all.

1. katoomba/forbes/parkes/mudgee (3-4 nights).
2. coona/narrabri (2 nights)

the destination chosen depends on the weather when we are in nsw (i check with accuweather). let say on the day we find out katoomba is only partialy clear, we'll go to parkes, hoping the sky will be very clear there. to keep it short,we'll decide we to go on the travelling day, with the priority is coona/narrabri areas.

so anything wrong with this plan?

[iceman]

Looks like a good plan to me!

[elmkid]

tq again mike.

anyone knows a blog about stargazing experiences around australia? some sort of journal from 1 observatory to another.

tq again.