Queensland Astrofest-portfolio

[OzEclipse]

Here are a few of the Nightscape images I took during the recent Astrofest Queensland event held at Camp Duckadang, near Moore, 130km NW of Brisbane from July 22-31.

Part of the Astrofest telescope field. Due to rain the week before the event, camping areas and telescope locations were restricted to avoid wet boggy ground both for camping, vehicles, and scopes. There were about 50 scopes set up during the event.

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A few pictures of "Nocturne," a 28" f3.5 SDM built scope with a 28" composite mirror by
Fullam Optics and owned by my friend, Chris Cox. To my surprise, there were not long lines of people wanting to look through the scope. On occasions, it was just Chris and I and other times, Chris as one of the organisers had to go attend to something and he was kind enough to let me have free reign given that my 18" has a very similar digital setting circle and control system.
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The telescope with a mirror full of stars.

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Some nights, a fog would rise from the river that encircles the camp. I captured some full Milky Way arch panoramas over the hay field but these won't be processed until later.

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Joe

[SkyHiker]

A 28" composite mirror, do you have a link? I found a 28" F/3.7 on the SDM website but it says nothing about the mirror being composite.

Thanks for rubbing it in, full views of the center of the Milky Way, aargh... this is why I need to spend a vacation in the southern hemisphere if I can figure out how to bring some imaging gear. Nice pictures BTW!

[messier 111]

all very nice , thx .

[Bigzmey]

Beautiful captures Joe!

[OzEclipse]

A 28" composite mirror, do you have a link? I found a 28" F/3.7 on the SDM website but it says nothing about the mirror being composite.

Thanks for rubbing it in, full views of the center of the Milky Way, aargh... this is why I need to spend a vacation in the southern hemisphere if I can figure out how to bring some imaging gear. Nice pictures BTW!

Henk,

This is Chris Cox’s SDM scope. Number 102. It is an f3.8 not 3.5 as I stated.
http://www.sdmtelescopes.com.au/scope-s ... -28-f-3-8/

If you look at some of the rear views of the mirror you can see the composite structure
Once at thermal equilibrium the views are magnificent. Most of the nights that process took 5 hrs. The extra light gather is excellent. It collects twice the light of my 18”. However my 18” cools very quickly and overall I think I would keep my 18” over the 28”. Views of dso’s were not so much better than my 18”. The 3.1 m focal length of the big scope over 2.5m on mine meant climbing up that bit higher on a ladder. Some objects required standing on the ladder’s top step which I won’t do in the dark.

The event location is technically a Bortle 2 site overhead but with a very bright glow from greater Brisbane and coastal areas in the east and south east. My home skies are darker overhead and especially around the horizons. So my comparisons between the two are my 18” in better skies than the 28”. At some stage, Chris said he will come and visit me for a week in summer and bring the 28”. Qld summer skies are very cloudy, winters clearer. Down south our weather is the opposite with clearer summers. This is possibly a couple of years away but when it happens we can do a full side by side comparison between the two instruments.
Joe

[scribbly]

Joe,
great photos of the site. You have the method for capturing the MW and people working at their scopes and while imaging, it is such an appropriate supporting subject. I particularly like the images with big dobs!.

Congratulations on winning several of the imaging comps at Astrofest!!

Phil

[Juno16]

Wow, that sounds like an awesome time Joe!

Thanks for the nice report and beautiful photos!

[Unitron48]

Incredible images! Sounds like an awesome event!!

Dave

[BABOafrica]

The Milky Way panoramas are gorgeous.

I can see you are taking full advantage of your Queensland trip. All the equipment photos are nice but I especially like the one with just the dob pointing to the Milky Way.

BABO