Southern Cross - Hamley Bridge

Me and my wife went up to Hamley Bridge last night. I went for a walk at one point of the evening and spent awhile on a disused rail platform, ostensibly to take photos of McNaught's Comet in the dark country sky. The darkest place I could find nearby was the railway station. Whilst there, I snapped this 25s exposure (ISO 100) of the Southern Cross above Platforms 1 and 2.

Hamley Bridge used to be a rail town with over 1000 people (last few decades of the 19th century) living there. Nowadays it's down to about 600. I'll be posting photos from my trip over the next few days I hope. And yes, there will be some more comet photos!

Southern Cross - Home

This was my balcony view of the Southern Cross at the time our view of Comet McNaught began to fade into the smog and light of Adelaide, as well as the amount of atmoshphere between eye and horizon. I set the exposure time and sensitivity settings on the camera to a lot less than those I used at Tanunda recently. Time would have been around 9.30 pm.

Southern Cross - Tanunda

I've been to Tanunda (most famous for its wines and german heritage) a couple of times in the past week to catch up withcanadian relatives. It was great to see them after a very long time, and amazing how well I seemed to know them, considering. Around midnight on Friday I set up the tripod and tried to catch the Southern Cross, a constellation that features on our flag and in our folklore. You can see it and its pointers (the two bright stars just above the dark 'V' in the bottom third of the picture which point towards the actual 'cross') in this reasonable representation of a bit of our Southern Sky. I remember missing the Southern Cross when I was in Scotland in 2003!