Steve Paxton's photos

Mandurah Crab festival well before Covid struck us. Day and a night. despite the colours I believe this is the Heron that frequents the water ways of Mandurah. PIP's views of the festival and the fire works.

I have been suffering from a bad knee my Doc said given my age we should get it Xrayed to check. I fronted up at 8:30 in the morning on Monday and was sitting down to fill in the paperwork in the chair you see. My wife was sitting on the right in a chair right beside me. All of a sudden the was a almighty bang I looked around to see the glass all shattered my wife followed my lead as I jumped away from the window. The overriding sound was a car reving well past the red line which gave away the cue to the whole story. The lady put her foot not on the brake but the accelerator . She hit the small brick wall and that brought her to a stop if not for that my wife and I would have been in a very bad way. never will I just sit any where with out thinking on this kind of result. Thankfully the glass held as there was a film of dark window tinting on the out side surface. Yes my knee is old but it is Ok it was the strains on the surrounding tissue

The 28"s where happy to come get the seed from a persons hand

The look out over Albany is even set up for wheel chair Access . I would not like to push a wheel chair up the slope to get here. view from the front.

With all the rain that we have had this year these plants have grown so much. Contrast them from very first shot. This plant is called in WA the resurrection plant as it "dies" is summer heat to dry straw, In the rains of winter it comes alive as you see here. For the last three years this plant has been part of my bonsai collection and growing perfectly. each year I get to see flowers most people is Australia would never see at all. the plants are no more than 90mm high to the tops of the flowers There is hope for us all as well we will get our winter and life will flourish.

My first chance to shoot in a very long time so two targets over the two night all auto start. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_Nebula Here is 71 shots @ 10 min subs. ZWO ASI183MC Pro @ -10c Prima Luce Essato Focus , Optolong LeNhance filter, Skywatcher Black DiamondED80 OTA Skywatcher NEQ 6 Pro Guided PHD2, SGP Pixinsight, Ps.

My first chance to shoot in a very long time so two targets over the two night all auto start. I can not find a number for this nebula I had to use to small one above and place frame to get the shot. So here is 31 shots @ 10 min subs. ZWO ASI183MC Pro @ -10c Prima Luce Essato Focus , Optolong LeNhance filter, Skywatcher Black DiamondED80 OTA Skywatcher NEQ 6 Pro Guided PHD2, SGP Pixinsight, Ps.

This is a large glass table I clean every two weeks BUT I keep forgetting to take a camera so here is the phone, HFF. The steel fence is Beige. The glass is a very dark colour has quite a lot of ripples in it and as you can see a few scratches bottom of the photo.

This was a night I was to take Clara and pick up in 2 hours the night was my own. I have not seen quite so much rain so I took my water proof lens and headed out into the night. I was forced to shelter under the Bridge as a heavy rain went over head. Look on the left side of the bridge to see the water draining off the bridge. These photos came from the same night nothing short of stunning....................... Never give in.

A shot from 82' Enjoy Fuji ASA 200 50mm @ F5.6 Olympus OM-2N. A very hot day as we walked around the place taken from a jetty.

The second look at this Nebula you can see the Pillar of Life better in this shot.. First look. So here is 69 shots @ 5 min subs till the tree got in the way. ZWO ASI183MC Pro @ -10c Prima Luce Essato Focus , Optolong LeNhance filter, Skywatcher Black DiamondED80 OTA Skywatcher NEQ 6 Pro Guided PHD2, SGP Pixinsight, Ps.

This is below serpentine dam and feed to the Perth water Supply.

This is a very new start a whole new astro Camera . After months of clouds and rain my first night with the new camera did not go as planed. It was a screw on screw off , or supose to be, but I have always known good Focus was HFR 1.9-2.1 that was a value I never got I was getting readings of HFR 7.07 so I thought so far out of focus not worth going any Further. I had a talk to Carlos it was normal for the camera to change the HFR. It has taken a whole month + to get a night I could try again to see if I could make sense of focus and the New Camera. I started by going through the focus range to see I was in the right area. In the end I went back to Old School put the Mask on to check it was right. It proved 100% I was in the right area. This shot I believe is the top limit of Focus as you can see by looking at the stars. Quite a Halo around them, at 4 am I was awake and knew the mount would have stopped as it would have run into the tree. I spent 1 1/2 hours testing focus position and step size to end up with a whole new position and the test shot showed me crisp stars. This 1" camera has AMP Glow and it was a nightmare to procees to get it right so it did not show up but was taken away in the darks. you cant miss the AMP glow on the left hand side what looks like a very bright star is infact electrical interference. this I was not able to stack like I would normaly it was a case of stacking in Pixinsight a very long process but good result. A whole new nebula tonight and tomorrow ( set off from Fremantle while I have a meal inside the Portuguese club mount at home ) this will be the true test out of all I have been trying to work towards. So here is 59 shots @ 5 min subs till the tree got in the way. ZWO ASI183MC Pro @ -10c Prima Luce Essato Focus , Optolong LeNhance filter, Skywatcher Black DiamondED80 OTA Skywatcher NEQ 6 Pro Guided PHD2, SGP Pixinsight, Ps.

Over view of Albany looking to the South coast.

Albany wind farm strong westerly in action note the size of the people lower right. Wind farm very left hand end.

For those that would like a little more info see the link below. not a perfectly still night but still like the effect of the lights on the water. this changes colour to suit what is being celebrated I believe this was"Ladies Day". This shot was a 100% manual set up to get the shot I wanted and keep the exposure short just in case there where any stars showing but a big stretch F14. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matagarup_Bridge

I will take the Do not Fence me in.

This is the NEQ6 Pro a much heavier mount (head and legs 20kg 12kg EQM35 with weights.) and better tracking. I will in the end of august get the mount upgraded with belts and all gears are taken out so no backlash. From back to front ZWO(red) camera next to camera filter draw , Reducer, spacer rings for Focuser, Red Square ESSATO auto Focus and ED 80 Skywatcher scope. On top Guide scope and camera. the plastic bag covers the power board and plugs from the very heavy dew. I also have a plastic sheet on top of the guide and electrical point on top (not shown here as I removed) to keep safe all the electrical parts from the heavy dew. As well as this two Dew heaters one for scope and one for guide scope. All the wires are wrapped around scope to keep things tight and no loose wires. Under the silver sheet and towel is the computer in a 55lt box that all the deep space parts fit and doubles as computer cover as well, towel is to kill the light from the computer screen. the mount is sitting in a 2m square that is one side fence, one side shed and two sides shade cloth to cut light and cut wind. my aim here it to use three cameras. D810 full frame 600mm ZWOASI071MC DX crop 900mm ZWOASI183MC 1" sensor 1800mm all on the same scope and depending on the target which camera gets used. My EQM35 was sold to my wide field milky way partner plus a whole lot of help notes and set up in the hope he will get a bit of his Mojo back and take photos again.