Aurora Australis at Lake Alexandrina

What an evening GingerNan and I had last night! We were to be out with a local Astro Photographer, Fraser Gunn, for a couple of hours, which stretched for 5.5 hours, ending up with our lights going out at 03.20am! The Aoraki Mackenzie Dark Sky Reserve is the only Dark Sky Reserve in the Southern Hemisphere. It was very dark indeed at Lake Alexandrina, with the tiniest sliver of a moon due to rise just after 4.00am - I think we may have been asleep :)

Fraser is an absolute mine of information and our enthusiasm really fired him up. It was one of those occasions that I know I'll never forget. As you can see, the conditions were perfect, with little or no wind, wonderful Sky Glow to the north and this deep Aurora glow to the south. You'll be able to see the two pointers of the Southern Cross just above and to the left of the tree, and the Southern Cross above that again, stretching up into the Milky Way. We finished the evening photographing the Orion Nebula, through Fraser's amazing telescope - I'll have to put that photograph on Flickr.

Starry Eyed? - how could we not!! - do look Large.