Auckland Observatory, New Zealand

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In June 2014 I visited Auckland New Zealand. I contacted the Auckland Astronomical Society and had a nice E Mail back from their president Bill Thomas who invited me to come and visit. When I got there it was winter and the weather is typically wet in June. I managed to get one clear night though and contacted Bill and we arranged for me to come down that evening to their observatory at One Tree Hill  in the suburbs of Auckland. The weather was still not cooperating fully and we had a lot of cloud going across.

The observatory is part of a complex called the Stardome Observatory which includes an excellent display area and a planetarium which holds daily shows for the public, who can on certain days also observe through the main telescope and at courtyard viewing sessions outside the observatory. The Auckland Astronomical Society has custody of the dome housing the Edith Winstone Blackwell telescope. The telescope, donated by Edith Winstone Blackwell, is a Zeiss 20" Cassegrain on a German Equatorial mount in an automated wooden dome. 

Bill showed me some of the Southern skies through the scope. Although the observatory suffers with quite a lot of light pollution, being in the suburbs of Auckland, I managed to see some great sights. This included the Jewel Box cluster (NGC4755), a magnificent open cluster, and Eta Carina with the Homunculus Nebula (the nebula is embedded within the much larger Eta Carinae Nebula). Unfortunately Bill had to go off to a society committee meeting downstairs, but he left me with a member of the society, Danutzi Ionescu, who showed me more of the Southern skies. We tried to get my DSLR connected up to their scope, but we just couldn't get a focus sadly. Then it clouded over so we gave up. I did manage to point the DSLR unguided at the sky and I took some 10 second images of some of the Southern Milky way and other objects.

I'd like to thank Bill and Danutzi for their kind hospitality.

Here are a few of the pictures I took.

The Stardome Observatory
Entrance to the Edith Blackwell Observatory
The Zeiss 20" Cassegrain Telescope
The Zeiss 20" Cassegrain Telescope
The observatory dome, outside, in the dark !

Southern Milky Way showing the Southern Cross, the Coalsack Nebula (Caldwell 99), the Jewel Box cluster (NGC4655) and Alpha Centauri. Modified Canon 1100D DSLR unguided with 50mm f1.8 lens. 30 second exposure (3 x 10 seconds) at iso 1600. Yellow region on left is cloud.
Image taken from Auckland Astronomical Society observatory, Auckland, New Zealand, June 2014
Southern Milky Way showing the Carina Nebula (NGC3722), the Southern Pleiades (C102) and the Running Chicken Nebula (C100).
Modified
Canon 1100D DSLR unguided with 50mm f1.8 lens. 30 second exposure (3 x 10 seconds) at iso 1600.
Image taken from Auckland Astronomical Society observatory, Auckland, New Zealand, June 2014


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