I booked myself in for foot surgery six weeks before this lunar eclipse, signing up only after confirming with the surgeon that I would be 'good to go' for an astrophotography expedition - a road trip across Victoria or into neighbouring states to find clear skies.

Third time lucky, yet still not without significant natural and man-made challenges. Our adventure in via Snowy Plains Firetrail for a week of snow camping at Cesjacks and O'Keefe's Hut and ski touring back in the Jagungal Wilderness.

3% ain't much of a solar eclipse, but when it's all you've got and it happens at sunset, it's still worth a shot or three. And a couple of days away and several night's rehearsing.

With lockdown #5 complete, I finally got to start some winter leave and headed straight for Mount Beauty, via Bendigo for the now mandatory pre-resort entry COVID test. I got in three days skating at Falls Creek, before Tim and Eric joined me for a much anticipated ski tour. 

Wednesday 26th May 2021 would be the first lunar eclipse in three years, although it was only barely total, with the Moon completely inside Earth's shadow for just 14 minutes or so. But as usual, I would bite off more than I could likely chew.

Composite image with Moon correctly positioned relative to Earth's shadow

Although I already have an automated observatory for deep sky imaging, with some time and inspiration in isolation in early 2020, I setup my smaller equatorial mount in my 'darky sky' backyard for some widefield imaging with a QHY367C CMOS camera and a Canon 85mm lens, to capture this stunninng view of this region of sky, inspired as I have been for the last 25+ years by Akira Fujii's own famous image of this iconic constellation. In total, I captured 20 hours of exposure across three panes of the mosaic, including additional frames to capture the red nebula through a hydrogen-alpha filter and multiple layers of blurred stars through soft effect filters.

Southern Cross and 'The Pointers', captured by Phil Hart in April/May 2020
QHY367C camera and Canon 85mm lens at f5.6, 20 hours total exposure

Image processing has got nothing on editing timelapse videos when it comes to consuming your life's spare moments! Especially if the timelapse involve rapidly changing aurora and day-night twilight transitions captured in challenging circumstances. But after a hectic summer, I have finally made time to get back to the footage from my Yukon Aurora Adventures and produce video #3. Originally conceived as a seven minute version which included some 'behind the scenes' type sequences, I was prompted to create this short two minute version first from the best of my Yukon footage for the 2013 David Malin astrophotography awards.

The Yukon's Northern Lights from Phil Hart on Vimeo.