This tour couples a four-wheel drive experience with star gazing and astro tourism.
This tour is for you if:
- You love the adventure of getting into remote places?
You have a passion for the night sky?
You wish to learn about and observe objects in the southern sky?
You wish to learn about astrophotography from wide-angled milky way images to images of deep sky objects?
You are an accomplished astrophotographer wanted to get to some remote spots
Light pollution has significantly increased globally, with studies from 2016 indicating that over 80% of the global population lives under light-polluted skies, making the Milky Way invisible to about one-third of humanity. Do you live in one of these areas and wish to see the milky way in all its glory? This tour will enable you to observe the glory of the milky way and deep sky objects from some pristine dark sky sites in New Zealand’s South Island.
Light pollution is measured using a Bortle Scale, this tour takes you to remote Bortle 1 sites in the South Island of New Zealand.
Light pollution is only one factor that impacts on viewing and astrophotography success. High altitudes and clear atmospheric conditions also contribute greatly by reducing atmospheric distortion. The areas you will drive to on this tour are all elevated, at between 700 – 1,000m (2,300 – 3,300 feet) above sea level and will be cold at night reducing thermal noise on imaging systems.
Key activities each night will be:
Visual observations including:
Visible Planets. Jupiter will be visible early evening at the time of the tour; Saturn and Mars will be visible just immediately before dawn for early risers.
Some famous nebula and star clusters such as the Great Orion Nebula (M42), Omega Centauri
Electronically assisted astronomy – where images of interesting deep sky objects, such as the famous eta carina nebula and similar objects, will be collected and stacked in real-time.
Tracked and untracked milky way images
Discussion and assistance on camera settings, techniques for image acquisition, polar alignment for trackers, and general astrophotography techniques and equipment will be given.
When time allows, after arrival at destinations, before observations and imaging is possible discussion and demonstration on image post-acquisition processing techniques and software will be given.
This tour relies on the weather gods not intervening with poor weather. Should the nights be clouded in, or worse rained in, the above discussions and demonstrations will be extended.
Astrotourism Leader:
The astrotourism and astrophotography components of the tour will be led by Dr Nevin Amos. Nevin holds a PhD in BioProcess Engineering. He spent 8 years lecturing at Massey University in New Zealand before embarking on a scientific career, with roles in both New Zealand and Australia. He left science 25 years ago and has worked for several of New Zealand’s iconic businesses. He has spent nearly ten years living in very light polluted major cities including Syndey, Tokyo and Hong Kong so very much enjoys getting into the pristine dark skies of New Zealand’s wilderness and appreciates the real difference tour participants will get from what is normal for most of the world. Nevin has been capturing images of the night sky for over 15 years and has evolved from taking wide-angled milky way images, which he still does, to photographing very distant, dim, deep sky objects.
See images for examples of some of Nevin's images and videos from previous trips: