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Southern hemisphere skies.


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Kia Ora everyone.

I have recently embraced my passion for astronomy and purchased a Celestron C8 on an AVX mount which I love! However, an opportunity arose for me to do some travelling in New Zealand and here I am. Unfortunately I can't bring my telescope over just yet but I came armed with some new 10x50 Opticron Discovery bins to fill the gap. Anyway, I'm in a tiny town called Coromandel and last night I had my first real opportunity to see what the sky has to offer here. In a word, fantasmagorical!! Have another, amayonazing!! You don't even have to be anywhere particularly dark and you can just see the Milky Way, its immediately obvious, as are the Magellanic clouds. When you actually use the binoculars there are faint fuzzies all over the place, particularly in and around Sagittarius. So I'm just learning a few of the constellations and trying to work my way around. I thought I would share this "first light" experience with like minded people and as this is the newbie section, is there anything I should be looking out for? Also are you presented with a more luminous parts of the galaxy in the southern hemisphere because it really is striking?

I hope you all have a similar opportunity one day as it is incredible!

Regards,

Chris.

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Re ... is there anything I should be looking out for?

Answer is Yes. Look to the old constellation of Argo Navis  ie. Carina , Vela and Pupis.

post-37798-0-76106000-1413432997_thumb.j

If you are there towards the end of November (check your star map) you will see the greatest star show on earth as you will see all the brightest stars in the sky stretching from N to S.  At this time I even get to see Capella . You will see stars from Canopus (in Carina) to the Dogs (Major and Minor) to Orion , to Taurus and the Pleiades to the Northern stars lower down to the North.

Re: Also are you presented with a more luminous parts of the galaxy in the southern hemisphere because it really is striking?

Answer is  Yes and NO.  

Yes: Because desert areas in and  around the Flinders Range towns in South Australia have some of the best seeing and the darkest sites in Oz.

No: Because we all get to see the same skies!!

Jeremy.
 

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Here is a better star chart view for Lat S 34.5 degrees round Christmas. If you are close to this Lat. (North Island) then you can expect to see this amazing presentation:

Looking from Zenith to the North:

post-37798-0-99947800-1413435193_thumb.j

Looking from zenith to the South:

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At this time on a warm summer night you will get to see the lot from Centaurus and Crux to Auriga and Perseus and Gemini and Jupiter will be there masquerading as a bright star!!

AS the yanks say... Enjoy.

Jeremy.

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I used to live in Perth WA and loved the clear southern skies....not sure why I swopped them for the very cloudy northern skies.

I'm sure there were sound reasons like the love of making snow balls and chucking them around. You know what my mother said years ago ?

"I never want to see another blumming winter here again"... So here we are!!

Jeremy.

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