The Carina Nebula is one of the largest nebulae in the sky. Bigger than the Orion Nebula, so is an easy deep sky object to capture here in the Southern hemisphere.

The Carina Nebula is one of the largest nebulae in the sky. Bigger than the Orion Nebula, so is an easy deep sky object to capture here in the Southern hemisphere.

Say hello to the Skull and Crossbones nebula. Also known as NGC 2467. I think it has proven to be a little too distant for a 150mm telescope to handle. I might have to revisit it with a longer lens sometime, but for now this will have to do.

I took some more time to get to know my new bit of kit last night, particularly scheduled shoots. I am going to chalk it up to learning settings, because I had several target shots and none of them came out the best they could. I took a photo of the Pleiades and didn’t really get much of the associated nebulosity. But at least I can find targets and my alignment wasn’t askew.

I think it’s the law that a novice deep space object photographer must shoot the Orion nebula. And there were luckily some breaks in the cloud this evening. So here’s my photo. Not bad for a Bortle 5 sky, but the highlights are a little blown out. I think I have to shoot shorter subexposures when it comes to objects like this.

I haven’t been very active in keeping this blog of late, but I really should have posted for September’s partial eclipse. After all I did get up at sparrow-fart and headed to the beach to take some photos. I wasn’t the only person doing that, either.
In October, I went down to the Moray Place entrance to the art gallery to protest the Prime Minister. I have to admit in the moment instead of shouting something like “Justice for Palestine!” or “Pay the nurses!”, my brain kinda shorted out and I just went “Boo!”

