My night sky photos include this twilight silhouette of a man watching for the appearance of Comet McNaught.
“Continue reading” for various night sky phenomena.

A Finnish astronomy magazine  used this to demonstrate a crescent moon.  Not quite sure why they picked my rather ordinary photo.

Another shot of the 1% crescent moon and Venus makes for an interesting backdrop with some passing cyclists.

Above is the “smiley moon”. On December 1st 2008, the moon, Venus (left) and Jupiter (right) formed a smiley face. Shot was taken with a small digicam, so not at a particularly good resolution. Only happens every 100 years or so apparently. This one was only visible for a few hours and only in the southern hemisphere.

Using a long exposure on my Nikon D70s with tripod and infrared remote switch I can get adequate light for pictures in starlight.

A 5 minute exposure at night. The closer trees are lit up by a house light and the clouds are lit up with a nearby town. 
A 10 minute shot of the south celestial pole. The central stars appear stationary. There is no pole star as in the northern hemisphere.
A 6 minute shot of the Milky Way.

A 7 second exposure of the “Big Dipper” or Orion with my 180mm lens.
The fuzzy bit in the middle of the handle is the Great Nebula or M42. The right photo shows more magnification. Even in only 7 seconds, the stars move appreciably.

Satellites. The International Space Station is shown here in a 4 second exposure on 4th March 09. NASA would be proud of this shot complete with moonflare.

Related pages

  Comet McNaught

Try something else

  Fluoro tubes

External links

Smiley Moon – Sydney Observatory

Photo Date: Jan 21, 2007