The sand dunes at Birubi Beach are just stunning. With the right light it’s almost impossible to take a bad photo of these wonderful objects of nature. And so it was in December 2008 when the sunset painted just the right light on the wind-swept ripples in the sand, creating a wonderful scene to capture.

Dusk at Birubi Beach

These photos were taken during my family’s christmas holidays at the end of 2008. I’m glad I finally found the time to finish processing these – it reminded me of what a beautiful location it was.

The photo above is available for purchase at RedBubble, and for download as a wallpaper (1024×768). Please let me know if you would like other sizes made available.

Please continue reading to see the rest of the photos from the impromptu sunset shoot.

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I’m currently a red belt (3rd Kyu) at Black Belt Martial Arts karate, and it’s about 12 months from now that I’ll be in prep-cycle getting ready for my Black Belt grading. The prep-cycle is a 9-week intensive program to ensure that the candidates meet all the criteria required of them to grade to black belt at BBMA.

Black Belt Martial Arts

Some of my friends at BBMA are 1st Kyu and are in the middle of the prep-cycle right now, and will be grading for their black belt on the 22nd May – only 4 weeks away! 

The black belt grading is not just 1 session – it’s a whole weekend of physical of mental exhaustion. Continue on to read more about the gruelling black belt grading weekend and how I plan to start preparing for it.

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Hi all. While checking out the calendar on the weekend I just realised it’s been 6 months since this site, MikeSalway.com.au was launched. It’s been quite an experience so far. 

Having a personal blog site and image gallery has been great – a place to share my images, share my thoughts and learn some new technologies too. Getting more involved in blogging, WordPress, twitter, marketing and social media to help develop and grow this site has given me a lot of new ideas and experiences that will help me for the future.

I’ve had a lot of great feedback from people who have visited the site and have started to build up some regular traffic, from search engine traffic as the content builds up, as well as through subscribers, twitter, and referrals from other sites.

The graph below shows a graph of the daily visitors since the site was launched, and you can see that the trend is upwards – it’s heading in the right direction which is great. The huge spikes are from having my images published on APOD on the 5th December 2008 and 26th February 2009, and the smaller one between is when one of my posts went viral on StumbleUpon.

MikeSalway.com.au Visitor Stats

The most popular and most read posts have been:

• Pictures of the Smiley Face Conjunction
• Photos of the Moon, Jupiter, Mercury and Mars Conjunction
• The Top 10 Best Astrophotographers in Australia
• From the Vault: Dynamic Jupiter in Motion
• Moon and Planet Conjunctions in February and April

My Equipment and Planetary Imaging Equipment pages have been very popular, as has visits direct to my gallery.

So what’s next? More of the same I guess. I’ll be continuing to do what works well:

• Post my astrophotography and landscape photography, 
• Feature images and highlight the work of great astrophotographers,
• Write articles about upcoming celestial events
• Share my personal highlights with you too, including karate, family and more.

I’m also happy to hear your ideas and suggestions on how I can make MikeSalway.com.au a better site. Please feel free to contact me or comment using the form below.

I’ll probably also work on a site redesign later in the year, maybe for the 1-year anniversary – we’ll see.. it’s a busy time of year in October with IISAC planning and execution.

Thanks for visiting and thanks for reading!

First clear morning in a week, finally able to image Jupiter again. I was hoping for nice seeing as fog was predicted and one of the coolest mornings so far leading into Winter.

The seeing was only average though, slightly better than it has been lately which is an encouraging sign. I caught the tail end of the GRS in the first image and the NEB outbreak rising in the 2nd image.

Jupiter

Jupiter with NEB outbreak

The data was captured at 30fps for 45 seconds in each channel. Approx 350 frames from each channel were stacked, and was processed in Registax, AstraImage and Photoshop.

More unsettled weather with a southerly change predicted for the next few days so not sure when the next opportunity to image will be. Just gotta keep trying!

Thanks for looking.

The run of terrible seeing continues along the East Coast of Australia, as these Jupiter images were captured last week in less than average seeing on the 16th and 17th of April, 2009.

The first image shows the GRS and the second image shows the NEB outbreak.

Jupiter and GRS

Jupiter and NEB Outbreak

Not too much else to report – getting frustrated by the run of horrible conditions. The skies last week were clear for 3-4 days in a row, Jupiter is now over 50° in altitude before sunrise, and yet the air has just been terribly unstable.

And then this week, rain all week so there’s been no chance to do any imaging.

I’ve had my 12″ scope sitting on table outside to take the mirror out and wash it, but I haven’t had a chance to do it. I need to do it tonight so it’s ready for the next clear morning!

I’ll keep trying, the good conditions will have to come soon!

Bellingen and Dorrigo have had some incredible rain lately, being flooded and blocked off both in February and April.

My mum lives in Bellingen and works in Coffs Harbour and sent me these pictures. I’m not sure who took them but they are just incredible so I thought I’m share them here.

Anyone who has driven from Bellingen up the mountain road to Dorrigo know what a drive it is. Both scary and amazing. A very windy road, very narrow in parts, but also beautiful – what a view and some great waterfalls along the way too.

Not sure how beautiful it would be to see this on your way up!

Dorrigo Mountain Road Cut Off

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Australia has some very very talented amateur astrophotographers, producing images that are among the best in the world. Our beautiful dark skies, combined with the stunning objects visible in the Southern Hemisphere, give Australian Astrophotographers a bountiful choice of targets on which to produce their inspiring work.

I wanted to feature and profile these brilliant individuals and showcase their best or their favourite images by compiling my Top 10 Best Astrophotographers in Australia.

The Horsehead Nebula by Greg Bradley, one of the Top 10 Best Astrophotographers in Australia

Please continue reading to find out the criteria I used for selection, to see who made the top 10, and to be blown away by their fabulous astrophotography.

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On the morning of the 9th April, a bright ISS pass went almost overhead, coming out of Earth’s shadow at about 60° altitude in the South West (where I have trees) heading through to the North East. I was well prepared for this pass – finderscope was aligned (and not fogged up!) and I checked focus with the 2x barlow and DMK21AU04 using Jupiter.

My hand-tracking was good and I got loads of frames with the ISS captured, but very few were sharp and usable so I’m not overly happy with the results. My shutter speed was too long again and the seeing wasn’t good. 

The solar panels flared while I was capturing – the image on the left shows very bright solar panels (earlier less sharp images showed them even brighter. The image on the right shows a shadow across the solar panels, probably from one of the radiators.

ISS 09/04/2009

Please read on to find out more about the pass and the capture.

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I captured a new Jupiter image this morning (unfortunately in only 4/10 seeing), finally getting to see the GRS for the first time this season. It’s definitely paler than last year!

As I was processing my image, Lester Barnes from South Australia posted his image from this morning on IceInSpace – and it’s easily the best Jupiter image captured by anyone this year so far. I can tell you it discouraged me from finishing the processing on mine!

Jupiter with GRS by Lester Barnes

Lester uses a Meade 14″ SCT with a modified DFK21AF04 and captured this image this morning on the 9th April local time. He used Registax 5 and AstraImage for processing.

Read on to see my image from this morning, as well as a new image from Anthony Wesley captured yesterday.

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Back in late January, I posted about Preparing for my First Wedding Shoot, and finally it’s time to follow it up with the actual results from the wedding!

The wedding was in early February but a combination of very busy weeks and weekends meant it took longer than I’d hoped to finally get through and process the (literally) hundreds and hundreds of photos that I took at the wedding. 

But they were fnally finished a few weeks ago and now it’s time to talk about what I learned and to present a selection of my favourite photos from the day.

Tanya and Marvin

Please continue reading to see more images and read more stories from the day.

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