There has been a stunning sight of Jupiter rising in the east these past few weeks. Just on dark, and rising right along with the core of the Milky Way, has been an incredibly bright “star” just below the scorpion, and beside Sagittarius. Just below Sagittarius is the ringed planet, Saturn. These shots were taken on June 6 from Binalong Bay, with the famous Bay of Fires tree in the foreground.

Milky Way & Jupiter rising over Binalong Bay, June 6 2019. 40 second exposure at 15mm, using the Pentax Astro Tracer function.

For these shots I enabled the Astro Tracer function (on my Pentax K1). It is a great feature and quite unique to the Pentax line up of cameras. For those who don’t know much about Pentax (I guess almost everyone reading this right!) the Astro Tracer utilisers the GPS to pinpoint the cameras location and rotate the cameras sensor in order to eliminate star trails. It is a very effective feature and one I have been getting a great deal of use from.

Star guide – main features labeled. 30 second exposure at 24mm (again with tracing mode on)

Light painting the famous tree

Winter is here in Tasmania, and the nights are very long with darkness falling not long after 5:00pm so it is a great time to get out and do some astrophotography. The Milky Way is bulging above the eastern horizon, so once the full moon has passed this week, there will be dark skies and more opportunities. Enjoy the dark!