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Joe's Spring 2022 Astronomy and Astrophotography Newsletter

The astrophotography field by night @ Queensland Astrofest ©2022 Joseph Cali
Taken at Queensland Astrofest on July 30th at about 10:00pm.  


Hi everybody,
Well it's been a cloudy, wild, and wet old year this year. The year started pretty well for me personally with lots of clear weather around New Year for observing the magnificent Comet Leonard as described in my last newsletter (February). Since then, it would be an understatement to say there's been quite a lot of cloud!  Fortunately, I didn't get the excessive rains out here in the Central West that areas closer to the coast and even Canberra have received but I have not had many clear nights compared to other years. The bad news is that there's probably more coming, a third summer of La Niña is not certain but is being predicted as likely to occur over coming months.



Workshops
Out here at '34 South,' I only managed to run one 'Nightscapes and Startrails' Photography Workshop. It was scheduled for the beginning of April but weather delayed it to the beginning of May. I tried in vain to run the 4 day astrophotography workshop in May, June and early July.  I scheduled it on 4 different weekends over these months. Weather necessitated that we cancelled all four weekend attempts.

I have decided to take a year-long break from hosting the astro workshops out in the Central West.  Each time we plan to host one takes a lot of preparation work. Between the two types of workshops, I think I’ve had to cancel or postpone 12 proposed workshops due to weather, fire, or COVID. Although a few have been rescheduled, at least 9 were cancelled. There are also some difficulties with insurance coverage that will take time to work through. Meantime, another La Niña (wet) summer is predicted. All these things have led me to the decision to pause for a year or so and rethink the way we are trying to offer these workshops.  I apologise to those of you who have been waiting to enrol, especially those in the tracked astrophotography workshop.

While I can often sneak in the Nightscape one night field trip between cloud, finding 3 clear nights in a row during winter months has proved difficult. Consequently, I am looking to move the 4 day workshops to a late summer delivery when the weather out here is usually more consistently clear for days even weeks on end. The downsides are that the Milky Way only rises about an hour before twilight and the nights are shorter and with daylight saving, the dark arrives quite late. Photoaccess is usually closed over January which further limits access to enrolment services. However, for tracked astrophotography, there are many interesting targets in the summer sky.  I hope to be back offering workshops in late 2023 or early 2024.


Handbook
I will produce the Canberra Nightscape Photographers Handbook again for 2023.  When I prepare them, I usually edit two consecutive editions at a time so most of the 2023 handbook is already done. This will be the last time I produce it in that format.  This year, I put the handbook on it's own dedicated download page and this allowed me to track how many people downloaded it. It's only a handful of people so it's time to put this little publication to bed.




Queensland Astrofest
Last July, I travelled to the Queensland Astrofest, held about 120km NW of Brisbane at Camp Duckadang.  Queensland Astrofest is a ten day astronomy camp. Observing and photography by night, invited speakers during the day.

I was one of the invited guest speakers and gave a two-part talk about nightscape photography across two of the days. The event was set to run for 9 nights/10 days. They had eight clear nights out of nine.
 
Unfortunately, heavy rain occurred just before the camp was due to start causing the river level to rise above the bridge on the access road and cut off access to the camp for the first 4 days. A few people arrived early and got in just before the bridge was closed and enjoyed many nights of clear sky. I arrived on day 5 after the water level dropped gave talks on days 6 & 7 then stayed until the end. 

My mate Chris Cox wrote a 5 page article about astrofest that has just been published in Australian Sky and Telescope. While  I was at Astrofest, Chris told me he was writing the article  and ased if I could shoot a series of nightscape photos illustrating the event for him to use to illustrate. Chris brought his 28 inch SDM reflector from Brisbane out to the camp and I spent many an hour enjoying remarkable views of many objects through his remarkable scope and I featured the instrument in a number of my nightscapes. 
.......view my astrofest astrophotos







Astronomy Quiz - Just for Fun!

Here's a beginners astronomy quiz I wrote for an astronomy association I am involved with.
This is astronomy club member beginner level but does require some basic familiarity with the night sky. 
Obviously, this is not a test of how well you can Google the answers, rather to test your own knowledge.
This tinyurl takes you to a Google Form containing the quiz. Submit the quiz at the end and you'll get your score and answers.
https://tinyurl.com/7xk7rpv6

In the current period of cyber security breaches, I appreciate some of you may not like the idea of clicking on a compressed link.  Here is the full link so that you can see it's just directing you to a Google Doc Quiz. Nothing sinster here minister!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe9Wk0LOEPqINwnPbNjqBw_C1j0ZEDTZw9m-LhuAYn-Z16ERg/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0


Star Trackers
A few weeks ago, I saw a second hand Sky Watcher Star Adventurer listed for sale at less than half retail price.  I have two other trackers, a 15 year old Losmandy Starlapse, no longer in production and a Vixen Polarie. The vendor description said, hardly used. Upon receiving it on the Friday closest to last new Moon, I noticed that the original seals were still in-tact on most of the boxes.  I think the owner only opened the main box containing the polar drive, looked at it and never used it.  That night was clear so, I put the SA through it's paces in advance of a more comprehensive test and review. ........Read my initial assessment and see examples from my first night trials.




What’s Coming Up?

Between now and Christmas, there are a few meteor showers and a nice total eclipse of the Moon visible from our region.  Unlike last year, I don't have a bright comet on the horizon to flag. Comets like Leonard don't come along very often.  The geometry of the meteor showers favour the northern hemisphere and brightish Moon interferes with two of them.  The lunar eclipse is a near perfect geometry for us. Unfortunately it is on a week night,  but it starts just 20 mins after sunset and is all done by 11:00pm. That's about the smallest amount of lost sleep and most civilised hours you will get when observing a lunar eclipse.

September:
Sept 1st        Milky Way Setting around 1:00am  (EST)
Sept 23rd – Nov 27th Orionids Meteor Shower. Debris from Comet Halley the shower has a very broad range of dates for almost 2 months peaking on October 21-22.

Comet C/2017 K2 ( PanSTARRS ) is just near the Milky Way core travelling across the head of the Scorpion during September. It is a telescopic only comet.  Not bad in a telescope but not much chop in binoculars. 

October:
Oct 1st         Milky Way Setting around 10:30pm  (EST)
Oct 8th         Milky Way Setting around 11:00pm  (EST)
Oct 22nd     Peak of Orionid meteor shower.

November
Nov 1st     Milky Way Setting around 9:30pm (EDT)

Nov 6th     Brian Cox live show at the Royal Theatre, National Convention Centre

Nov 8th     Total Lunar Eclipse, begins at sunset (see the write-up in my 2022
astronomy handbook for a fuller description
https://joe-cali.com/index.html 

Nov 17th–18th     Leonid Meteor Shower peak. The Moon is just past last quarter. It won’t
completely wash out the display but will interfere slightly.

November 20th      Snake Valley Astrocamp (20km east of Ballarat) Event not yet confirmed.

December
Milky Way Core is behind the sun.
Dec 13th–14th Geminid Meteor Shower. A bright moon, 5 days past full, will interfere with this years display.



Total Lunar Eclipse -  November 8th 2022
Click here to read my detailed preview and photography guide




End of the Milky Way Season or is it?
I always find it amusing when I read social media posts declaring "The end of the Milky Way season."  Remarkably, these posts begin appearing in July, the middle of the Milky Way season.  The Milky Way central core is only hidden from view by the sun and twilight from mid-November to mid-January. 

While we are on the subject, don't forget the "other" Milky Way. The summer Milky Way, from Taurus through Orion, Canis Major, Puppis and Centaurus is fainter but nonetheless spectacular. 

Milky Way Core & Emu (Gurgumin)
2 wide x 6 high x 1 min images stitched into a mosaic
Pentax K1 ISO Date: Jan 19, 2021
Pentax K1  ISO 1600 
Pentax M 50mm f1.7 @ f2.8   

Date: January 7, 2021
Camera:      Pentax K1     ISO 1600     Exposure:  6 x 150s
Lens:           Samyang 14mm f2.8
No darks, no flats, no bias, raw processed in Lightroom, median stacked in Photoshop.

  Bigger versions of both these and other summer targets can be viewed in one of my web galleries
https://joe-cali.com/astronomy/index7.html


April 20th, 2023 Hybrid Solar Eclipse. 
A Hybrid eclipse is one where the eclipse is annular in one part of the central path and total in others.  Next year's eclipse is a total eclipse as seen from the Cape Arid NP peninsula around Exmouth, WA. Cape Arid is the only region in Australia where a total eclipse can be seen. It can also be seen as total from parts of Timor-Leste and Eastern Indonesia The rest of the Australian continent will observe a partial solar eclipse.  Accommodation on the peninsula is very tight and has been difficult to secure for the past two years. It gets booked up as soon as it is released. Soft-top accommodation starts at around $550 for a minimum 6 night stay and hard-top packages range from $3000 to over $10000.  I have been to 14 total eclipses in far flung corners of the world and in my experience this has been one of the most difficult eclipses I've experienced to secure accommodation. Australia will experience another 4 total eclipses over the next 15 years in 2028, 2030, 2037, 2038. All these eclipses are visible as total from the eastern states over wide areas. One passes over Sydney, Another over the southern part of greater Brisbane. If you can wait for the later eclipses, then wait. If you want to try to find accommodation for next years eclipse, contact me and I'll point you in the direction of some resources to help.

From the ACT region, a partial eclipse will be observed on April 20. The eclipse will have a magnitude of 0.19 and an obscuration of 9.5%. 
Magnitude:      is the ratio of the overlap of the diameters of the Sun and Moon. One fifth of the Sun's diameter will be covered.
Obscuration:  is a measure of the Sun's area covered by the Moon expressed as a percentage.  One tenth of the Sun's area will be covered.


Eclipse path overlay 2023 generated by Xavier Jubier



Total Solar Eclipses of 2028, 2030, 2037, 2038


Eclipse path overlays 2028, 2030, 2037, 2038 generated by Xavier Jubier