On the weekend of the 22nd – 24th May, the South Pacific Star Party (SPSP) was held at Wiruna, Ilford, about 3 hours drive West of Sydney. The SPSP is hosted by the Astronomical Society of NSW (ASNSW), and is Australia’s biggest star party and usually attracts up to 300 people from all over Australia and some from overseas, to enjoy the beautiful dark skies and great company that the SPSP has to offer.

This weekend was the 17th SPSP, and my 5th. In 2005 I attended my first SPSP and I’ve been hooked ever since. The beautiful skies and the chance to catch up with friends that you might only see once or twice a year, is well worth the trip.

Continue on to read more about this year’s SPSP – the bad weather, the great company and the results from the Astro Imaging Competition.

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In the From the Vault series, I feature an older image which hasn’t been seen here before and I talk about the capture and processing and hopefully highlight why this image is special to me.

The feature image in From the Vault this week is titled Observing the Milky Way and I think it’s easy to see why. The image was taken at the South Pacific Star Party in April 2007, and shows our beautiful Milky Way Galaxy rising over the observing field at the star party.

Jupiter is the bright “star” just above the centre, and Antares is the red star at the top centre of the image.

Observing the Milky Way

It was a beautiful night at the star party though my astrophotography wasn’t going as planned. Taking this photo was a last minute decision that worked out perfectly.

Please continue reading to see how I captured and processed this image.

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