One more week to go.. It’s getting so close now, though it still just doesn’t seem quite real yet. I’ve been blogging about my Journey to Black Belt for over a year now, and with only a week to go the excitement is building.

After seeing my real black belt, waiting for me on the rack at the dojo, it really to sink in. It does exist! Three  and a half years of training, 7 weeks of prep cycle, and now there’s only one week to go.

My Black Belt Awaits

The Prep Cycle has been interesting. In some instances it hasn’t been as hard as I expected it to be (some of the normal classes), but at the same time it’s been a draining schedule – especially with all the ‘at home’ training I’ve been doing too.

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Hi all

These star trail images were taken at the Mudgee Star Party, when I was there in mid-April 2010. All images were taken with my Canon 40D sitting on a fixed tripod, with a timer remote used to program the exposures.

Time-lapse movies of these star trails will be coming in the next few weeks, once I get time to start processing them!

Click each image for a larger version.

Mudgee Star Trails 1

The image above consists of 75 minutes worth of exposure (30 second exposures), captured with the Canon 40D and 17-70mm Sigma lens @ 17mm, f/5, ISO3200. One of the domes of the Mudgee Observatory is in the foreground, with the South Celestial Pole above it.

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Well it’s been just over 2 weeks since the Black Belt Prep Cycle started, and I figured it’s time to gather my thoughts about the process so far and give an update on my journey to anyone interested who’s still reading

The Black Belt Prep Cycle is a 7 week intensive program designed to stretch the candidates to their physical and mental limits, culminating in the Black Belt Grading Test weekend, on the 18-19 June. And intensive it has been.

I’ve been doing 4 classes a week, which are generally much harder than normal classes – with a much greater fitness component and much higher expectations on the candidates. I’ve also been doing lots of training at home – mainly fitness training with more situps, more pushups, more squat kicks and skipping too.

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On the night of the 17th April, a beautiful conjunction between the Crescent Moon, the Pleiades (M45) and Venus took place in the Western twilight sky. I was at the Mudgee Star Party at the time, which had a lovely unobstructed view to the West.

Venus, Moon and Pleiades Conjunction

These images were captured with my Canon 40D sitting on a tripod. I also took some prime focus images of just the Moon and the Pleiades through the ED80.

It was a stunning scene, and everyone at the star party was mesmerised by the view, taking it in with camera, binoculars and telescopes.

There’s a number of different views of the conjunction in this post, so please check them all out. You can click on each image for a larger version that opens in a new window.

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This image was taken at 7:30pm on the 17th April, when the Moon had a close grazing occultation of the Pleiades Star Cluster (M45).

The Moon and the Pleiades (M45)

It was captured at the Mudgee Star Party, using my ED80, modded Canon 40D with WO 0.8x reducer. FL 480mm, f/6, ISO 320, 5 second exposure.

Processed in Photoshop CS4.

Thanks for looking.

Photographing Fog.. I don’t know what you’d call it, but I came up with a couple of names for it – maybe they’re taken already, I haven’t checked

I call it Fogotography, or PhotoFography. Catchy I think!

Here’s a couple of images taken at Windamere Dam near Mudgee, on our way back from the Mudgee Star Party on a cool, foggy Sunday morning.

Bridge to Nowhere

We couldn’t see any water in the dam – not because of the low water level (which it was anyway), but because of the fog! It was very thick.

Road to Nowhere

Taken with my Canon 40D and 24-105mm lens.

Processed in Photoshop CS4.

Thanks for looking.

Just trying to get through the backlog of photos, here’s a couple of shots taken from the Mudgee Observatory when I was there for the Mudgee Star Party during April new Moon.

The first is of the Mudgee Observatory domes at sunset on the Saturday night. Jacob and I had just finished walking up part of the hill behind the observatory and were on our way down just before the sun set.

Mudgee Observatory at Sunset

The next two are of Jacob and I, higher up the hill just before we started walking back down.

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Over the past 12 months, I’ve been attempting to keep a running commentary (every so often, anyway) on my Journey to Black Belt. It’s now getting close!

Next Wednesday, Black Belt Prep Cycle starts – it’s a 7 week intensive program designed to stretch the candidates to their physical and mental limits, culminating in the Black Belt Grading Test weekend, on the 18-19 June.

As part of being accepted into Prep Cycle, I had to describe what Black Belt meant to me. I summed it up with the paragraph below:

To me, Black Belt is a journey. Reaching Black Belt is not the ultimate goal – it’s just one stop on the journey that starts from the first class of White Belt and never ends. It’s a constant cycle of self-improvement, reflection, technical revision, sacrifice, growth and personal development, physical and mental conditioning and pushing yourself through boundaries and towards goals you never thought possible.

In less than 2 months, all going well, I’ll be a Black Belt!

I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into Prep Cycle and becoming fitter, stronger and more confident to take that last step towards earning my Black Belt.

Thanks for reading.

Hi all

This image was taken from the Mudgee Star Party on the same night as my Scorpius and the Milky Way Widefield. It features a stunning area of sky, including the Pointers (Alpha and Beta Centauri) bottom right, the Southern Cross and the dark Coalsack (in Crux) in the centre, and the beautiful Eta Carinae nebula top left.

There’s so much going on in this image I had to reduce the dimensions to keep the size down, so please click the image to see the larger, much more spectacular version.

The Southern Cross, Pointers and Eta Carinae Widefield

Please read on to find out more details.

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Hi all

On new moon weekend in April, I was invited out to the Mudgee Star Party at the Mudgee Observatory, held by the Southerland Astronomical Society Inc (SASI), to give a talk on my astrophotography.

I took Jacob with me, and we had a fantastic weekend. Beautiful clear skies at night, warm sunny days, and a great friendly bunch of people at a great location.

On the first night I did some widefield astrophotography, with my modded Canon 40D with 24-105mm L lens sitting piggyback on top of my ED80. Below is the image of the Scorpius constellation in the Milky Way. Click the image for a larger version.

Scorpius Constellation and the Milky Way

Read on to find out more and to see a version with the constellation lines and a few other objects in Scorpius.

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