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Bathurst Observatory Research Facility
Ph: 0427 292 214 | Email:
Ph: 0427 292 214 | Email:
Here you will find our Latest News, please add to your Bookmarks/Favorites and return soon …
Watch this Space August and September 25
Tours have been very difficult to fit into my schedule as you may have noticed. The weather has not been kind, with a LOT of cloud and rain cancelling tours and putting my own work well behind schedule. At present, this does not look to be changing anytime soon. Tours are sadly paused for a bit, until the weather improves AND I catch up on my own work I need to do with the telescope.
As September begins, we do have a few interesting objects to observe. Saturn is making a return to the eastern evening sky. This year the rings are pretty much edge on, so will be harder to see. However, it will still be a good sight!
There are still good prospects for aurora as well, with the sun still very active. Hopefully I’ll get some more images of sunspots too. Folks will have noticed I haven’t imaged the Space Station for a while. So I might try for that as well!
The big event though is in the early hours of the 8th of September. There will be a total lunar eclipse visible for Australia. The times here are for eastern Australia. The Moon will start to enter Earth’s umbral shadow at 2:27 am and be totally in the shadow at 3:31 am (getting lower in the west). It will take on the copper colour that a total eclipse is famous for and mid eclipse occurs at 4:11 am! The Moon will remain eclipsed until 4:53am, when it starts to leave Earths shadow. By the time it fully leaves Earth’s shadow it will be pretty much on the western horizon for eastern Australia. I will post a reminder closer to the date! ... See MoreSee Less
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Ps. There are lots of fake stories about a six planet alignment, among others flying around social media. Some have tricked some highly regarded pages. Very sad.
Is your museum open?
As visitors to the observatory may recall, the museum I have has a collection of minerals, fossils and meteorites. There has been a bit of cloud about of late, so I joined up with a few friends from a fossil club and went on a collecting trip to gather some local fossils (from Forbes) to add to our growing museum. It is still cloudy, hence why no space image, but hope the trilobite fossils I found are still interesting!! ... See MoreSee Less
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We will have to drop in the next time we are in Bathurst, we are from Forbes, I didn't know about fossils at Forbes, we have been to the Age of Fisher's quite a few times.
Always something awesome to share with us, Ray.
Any day with a trilobite in it is a good day!
I turned the telescope towards the Lagoon Nebula (M8) after finding I needed to tweak the telescope. This nebula is a fairly bright and a good target for those branching out in astrophotography.
Comet 3IAtlas will be excited to image later this year (still too faint for my scope, I tried!). It will likely remain too faint to be seen without a telescope. I will though post some information in the coming months.
August tour dates will be posted as soon as I know my schedule. I haven't had many free nights of late I admit! ... See MoreSee Less
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I haven't imaged the Moon close up for a while so managed a few quick snaps on the evening of the 4th of July. ... See MoreSee Less
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Amazing shots. 🤩🤩
Working on the July tour dates, particularly, those for the school holidays. One issue is full moon occurs smack in the middle of school holidays!!! Tours are of course, near impossible with the bright moon wiping out much of the sky. So it looks like tours dates are pretty limited. I have two dates available;
July 15 and July 16th at 7:15 pm (booking essential)
I did have a clear weeknight recently and imaged NGC 6188. It is also known as the fighting dragons nebula! ... See MoreSee Less
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Firstly, I am sorry for delays in posting. I've had a pretty busy time with booked out tours, and a fair share of bad weather, have meant it has been difficult posting available tour dates. It does seem my first available dates will be during July (avoiding the full Moon of course). However, it has been an eventful month will Aurora and solar activity. I did squeeze in an imaging night a months ago and imaged galaxy NGC 4945! ... See MoreSee Less
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nice galaxy
A few images from the auroral storm on the 1st of June from the observatory. (before some high cloud moved in). ... See MoreSee Less
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Wow. How much was visible to the naked eye?
Incredible
My goodness. Great shots.
Beautiful.
Hi again, Great photos of the Aurora 👏 I'm back again with a new fb account.
Awesome pictures Niall!
Phil Wilson what we missed 🤣
Amazing images
Catherine Anne
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June 1st. There is a high probability of an Aurora storm in the late hours of the 1st to near dawn of the 2nd. You need a dark sky away from town lights and a clear view to the south. There is some error in the arrival time of the solar particles which cause the Aurora so I guess it is patiently wait and see!!! It is likely to be seen southwards of a line roughly from Newcastle to Perth, but perhaps a bit northward of that. Edit it has hit early so Aurora from sunset. But note the cloud coming on the satellite images. ... See MoreSee Less
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Rob Hogarth
I managed to sneak in an image of the Moon on the 9th of May. The telescope that was used is now around 40 years old and one of many at the observatory. ... See MoreSee Less
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Absolutely brilliant