[OzEclipse (Joe Cali)]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Wonderful stuff Joe. During a solar H-alpha imaging run I noticed
a significant flare and wondered whether it would trigger a display.....

You've provided the answer

Thanks Peter. The freedom of retirement + my location + excellent real time space-weather information resources is proving to be great for Aurora time lapsing. Being able to wander inside and flop on the sofa for a nap allows much longer sessions.

Yes David (Astral Traveller) I know there's that power pole you want me to chop down. But the pole supplies power to my and my neightbours houses... so no thanks.

This is my sixth event in the past 9 months. In the previous 35 years, when I was living and working full time in Canberra, finding the energy to travel out of town was very difficult which I'm sure many members here understand only too well. It's a much bigger trip out of Sydney. In those 35 years, I only ever saw one from inside Canberra in 1992.

Originally Posted by Leo.G

Lovely images Joe!
That was a long night but well worth it from the images.
I'm glad we had crappy weather, my Nikon is still in the repair shop and they're shut till the 6th January, six weeks so far awaiting a common part.



I was sent a couple of images in a text message by my younger sister in Queensland (not taken by her). My cousins wife (also in Queensland) is a flight hostess instructor with Jet Star and took some images at 34,000 feet somewhere between Brisbane and Perth, one has the tail of the plane in the image., I don't know exactly where they were taken.
We've had rain and winter temperatures ourselves locally, it's lovely (temperature wise not rain). Many nights have been dropping down between 5 and 7c, during summer.

Hi Leo,
Sorry to hear your camera is still being repaired. It was warm here that night. Pretty sure I was just in a tee shirt all night. We had a cold night last night.


My cousins wife (also in Queensland) is a flight hostess instructor with Jet Star and took some images at 34,000 feet somewhere between Brisbane and Perth, one has the tail of the plane in the image., I don't know exactly where they were taken.

This strikes me as very strange.
1. If flying either leg of BNE-PER the tail would be east or west.
2. Unless she was standing on the wing, how would she get the tail in the image from the cabin??

Hope you get your camera back soon. Once when doing AP, I didn't engage a dovetail securely. A whole side by side assembly slid out of the Losmandy D sized dovetail and landed on the ground all the force on my K1 camera body tearing out the bayonet mount. It had to be sent to Pentax in Japan and have the whole shutter and mirror box and lens mount replaced. 6 months before it came back but it has performed flawlessly this past 7 years since.

Be patient

Joe