A Clear Night at Siding Spring Observatory

[Hotdog]

A couple of photos taken last night of the dome of the Anglo-Australian Telescope, Milky Way and Magellenic Clouds. Not really up to the standard of many of the photos in this forum but I was still quite pleased with them because they're from a compact camera (Sony RX100) and were shot with no tracking, stacking or post-processing, they're just single shot JPEGs straight out of the camera.

More from the same night and higher resolutions here: http://drhotdog.smugmug.com/Nature/A-Clear-Night-at-Siding-Spring

[dutch2]

Great set of images and great location.
Well done.
:thumbsup:

[el_draco]

Probably shouldn't admit this but I once camped a couple of nights, about 50m from the AAT, a long time ago. The night was simply memorable and followed a day where I was given access to several largish scopes and personal tour of the AAT by a bloke called Tom Craig. Great bloke, amazing tour and ohhh, what a night sky! The view of Mopra Rock at dawn was particularly impressive.

I envy the you the job, and the location!

[Amaranthus]

Tom Cragg actually - my former next door neighbour on SSO!

[Hotdog]

Thank guys. This was actually a fairly rare opportunity for me, while I work for the AAO I'm one of the Sydney based staff and only get sent to SSO when required for some project or other. Some years that's meant 3-4 trips of 5-10 days each but this week has actually been my first visit to SSO for something like a year and a half, and I was only there for one night. What's more much of my previous work has been on either infrared instruments or high resolution spectrographs and that stuff gets scheduled during bright of moon! As a result this beautifully clear, completely dark night with the Milky Way high in the sky was something I really treasured.

[el_draco]

Never saw him again. He wrecked my life though... Lost the camping "companion", (She couldn't compete :P ) and have spent most of my life chasing stars...

Thanks Tom :thumbsup: