On Sunday, 23th August 2009, I competed in the National All Styles tournament at Ryde, NSW. It was Round 4 in their event calendar, and my third NAS event for the year after I competed in Round 1 back in March and Round 3 back in June.
I competed in the Open Continuous Sparring, the Advanced Intermediate Forms (Kata) (3rd Kyu – 1st Kyu), and the Advanced Intermediate Point Sparring (3rd Kyu – 1st Kyu). I’m currently a 2nd Kyu, so was up against black belts in the continuous sparring and people around my level for the other 2 events.
Cutting straight to the good news, I won my Point Sparring division! I placed first (out of 4 competitors), winning round 1 with a score of 5-2, and round 2 (the 1st/2nd playoff) with a score of 10-3. A still image and the video of my first place in the 1st/2nd playoff is below. (I’m the one starting on the far side, in the red gloves).
Scoring with Mawashi-geri (roundhouse kick) to the head
Please continue reading for more commentary, images and video from the National All Styles Round 4 event.
Over the weekend of the 19-20 July 2009, the CWAS Astrofest was held at Parkes, NSW. It’s an annual event that also includes the David Malin Awards – Australia’s premier astrophotography competition.
The David Malin Awards are judged by, of course, world-renowned professional astrophotographer, David Malin who was the photographic scientist-astronomer at the Anglo-Australian Telescope for over 25 years (read my Nov 2006 interview with David at IceInSpace).
Australia’s best and up and coming best astrophotographers submit images each year in the hope that at least one of them will make David sit up and take notice. The images are submitted and judged in the following categories:
Amateur – Wide-Field, Deep Sky and Solar System Objects
Semi-Professional
Junior (16 or under)
Open – “Twilight”
The David Malin Innovation Prize
The overall winner was the very talented Gary Hill, with his marvellous shot of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) which took out the Amateur Widefield category.
Large Magellanic Cloud by Gary Hill - Amateur Widefield
Please continue reading to find out the rest of the winners and see the images I entered into the competition.
I had some nice clear skies on the night of the 14th August, 2009 – when Jupiter was at opposition for the 2009 season. Being at opposition means the Sun, Earth and Moon form a straight line – and Jupiter is at its closest point to Earth in its orbit around the Sun, and it appears at its largest – subtending 48.9 arcseconds.
Unfortunately the seeing conditions were below average, but luckily they steadied for a few minutes just before midnight – long enough for me to capture just one run in slightly above average conditions, before the seeing turned bad again.
Jupiter at Opposition, with the GRS rising
Each channel was recorded for 48 seconds, and 600 frames from each were used to make the final RGB image.
Continuing to hope for clear and steady skies – it’s just not coming this year yet.
On Saturday night 8th August, I was able to capture some images of Jupiter with Io and its shadow in transit. The seeing was just above average – good enough to capture albedo features on Io, including the dark polar regions in contrast against the cloud tops of Jupiter.
The best image from the session is below. Io and it’s shadow are seen on the left, the Wesley Impact Scar is at top left just setting, and Oval BA is on the top right just rising.
Jupiter, Io and Shadow Transit
Please continue reading to see a 6-frame animation of all of the images from the night.
This post will highlight what’s happening at Jupiter during August, 2009 – including when and where you can observe Jupiter, opposition date, and dates and times for other interesting events for observers and imagers, such as Galilean Moon mutual events (occultations and eclipses).
Jupiter at Opposition in July 2008
Please continue reading for all of the information.
Last night started like every other – typically below average seeing, but instead of going back to bed, I waited it out – hoping it would get better. And it did!
The seeing peaked at 7 – 7.5/10, on a night when there was a fair bit going on. The GRS transited earlier, followed by the Wesley Impact Scar, along with Ganymede’s shadow and then Ganymede itself.
The image below is the first one I’ve finished processing, and is one of the last of the session. It shows the Wesley Impact Scar at top left, and Ganymede’s shadow and Ganymede on the right.
Jupiter, Ganymede and Shadow
The “Bird Strike” has really elongated out over the past few days, as it gets torn by the jetstream.
On the night of the 3rd August, what started as typically below average seeing, finally improved as the seeing reached a respectable almost 7/10 and gave some of my best views of Jupiter this year.
I was able to catch the 6th magnitude star 45 Cap in the same field of view as Europa and Io, which was a nice surprise.
Below is my best image from the night – the second last capture of the night. The seeing was improving nicely, but high cloud and then thick cloud brought my night to an end.
Jupiter with Wesley Impact Scar
The Wesley Impact Scar can be seen on the upper left of the planet, just about to rotate off. There’s one more image from earlier in the session, when the impact scar was at mid transit. Continue reading for more.
Today (3rd/4th August) in parts of Europa, Africa, South America and the Middle East, Jupiter is due to occult the star 45 Cap – something that happens very, very rarely.
For other parts of the world, including mine, the star wasn’t occulted by Jupiter but instead gathered close enough in the field of view for a conjunction with Europa and Io while I was out imaging Jupiter this morning.
Here’s my image from the close approach. 45 Cap is on the far left, Europa is next, and Io (with albedo features) is on the far right.
45 Cap, Europa and Io Close Approach
Europa and Io were on a path to have their own occultation in about an hour from the time the image above was taken, but clouds came and ruined my chance to capture their encounter.
Jupiter images from the session, complete with the Wesley Impact Scar, will be posted later on.
My name is Mike Salway and I'm an amateur astronomer and photographer. I'm the co-founder of IceInSpace, and this is my personal blog site and image gallery. Read more about me.
My name is Mike Salway and I'm an amateur astronomer and photographer. I'm the co-founder of 
