September 2010

01
Sep

Southern Skies Exhibition at Michaels Camera Store

Submitted by Phil

Michaels Camera Store in Melbourne are hosting an exhibition of astrophotography images taken by members of the Astronomical Society of Victoria.

The exhibition will be on in the upstairs gallery at Michaels Camera Store, corner of Elizabeth and Lonsdale Streets in Melbourne. Opening night is Friday 3rd September from 5:30-7:30pm. The exhibition will then run until Thursday 30th September during store hours, Mon-Thu 9-6pm, Fri 9-9pm, Sat 9-5pm and Sun 11-5pm.

astrophotography

Night Sky Photography Workshops

Submitted by Phil on Mon, 2010-09-06 17:21

Have you ever wished you could photograph the amazing Australian night sky? With just your Digital SLR and a tripod, award winning photographer and natural educator Phil Hart will teach you how to capture wide-field scenes of the night sky, long-exposure star trail images and timelapse video. And yes.. your camera is good enough and you can take images like these!

13
Sep

Cloud Forecasts for Australian Astronomers

Submitted by Phil
Cloud Forecast Loop

Summary

Almost all free weather websites and smartphone apps use data from the United States GFS global weather model as it is the only one openly published for all to use. But for cloud forecasts in the Australian region, there are two significantly better (although less user friendly) options you should also be looking at. All up then, here are my three recommended sources for cloud forecasts in the Australian region:

1) Synthetic Satellite Forecast Loop from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology ACCESS model: Australian Region Forecast Loop.
2) European Model forecast via the Norwegian site yr.no (the only site I know of that publishes European Model data: e.g. Heathcote, Victoria. Search for your nearest largest town, then choose 'Hour by Hour' and 'Detailed' to see the full cloud breakdown for high/medium/low cloud.
3) US Model via Skippy Sky: This is the best display of GFS data and the most user friendly of these three options. I would place greater weight on the previous two models though, particularly for short-term forecasts.

astrophotography
astronomy
weather