Since I was bringing my 1 year daughter and my wife, there was no luggage space for any telescope. So I brought along my fujinon 10x50 binoculars. We started from Perth, drove down to Margaret River. It was still raining then. We drove to Pemberton and it was raining. However, thankfully the rain cleared and we were rewarded with really clear pristine southern skies at Pemberton; albeit very cold at night and we had to use a fireplace in the cottage! I estimated the naked eye magnitude to be easily better than Mag 6. The milky way was clearly defined and the shades and nebulosity was so easy to see. Sweeping the milky way with the binoculars was greeted with many many easily observable deep sky objects. Also visible was the SMC and LMC. 47 Tucanae was bright in the binoculars; the central portion was very dense with stars. This is actually my first time looking at SMC and LMC as I usually observe from equator and northern latitudes.
I observed quite many objects and this is just a brief list. I cannot recall exactly all the objects I observed, too many; don't mind my spelling as it is probably not that accurate!Stargazing at pemberton western Australia
Equipment: fujinon bino. Stars pin pricks to almost the edge.
Approx mag 6+ sky
Milky way clearly visible with lots of nebulousity and dark nebulae especially in saggi area. High contrast background to stars and bright stars really bright thru bino
Objects seen
Cruising the beautiful Milky Way
SMC with 47 tucan glob
LMC
Sagg star cloud
Lagoon
Triffid
Eagle
Swan
Wild duck cluster
Many open clusters between ara and Norma
Open clusters in scorpions and saggi area
Uranus
Spiral galaxy and glob at Pavo
omega centaurs
Coasack dark neb
Star cluster at crux
Jewel Box
M6, M7 and many of the open clusters in Scorpius
Double star at crux
Double star at tucane
M22 and 4 other tiny globs at saggi
Many more objects according to sky safari tonight's best
5 shooting stars. 3 seen thru binoculars (cool
)After Pemberton, I drove south down to Albany, which in my opinion is the nicest town in South Western Australia. It was really beautiful the scenery with the bays, beaches and weather. By then the weather was slightly warmer, but still cool. Amazingly, the night sky in Albany was pretty good too! This was despite that the town is big, has an airport. The limiting magnitude in the cottage I stayed near Middleton Beach was close to 6; not bad for being in a big town! I guess it is because of the excellent transparency that reflects little of the town lights and thus the contrast of the sky was good despite light pollution.
I never took any night pictures. Guess I was too lazy. Anyway, attached are some day pictures showing the clear blue skies.
Green Pool at Williams Bay:
http://imageshack.us/f/84/p1090368u.jpg/
Looking for Whales at Middleton Beach:
http://imageshack.us/f/152/p1090464o.jpg/
My daughter 'steering' the decommissioned Whale Ship at Albany:
http://imageshack.us/f/717/p1090551y.jpg/
Sunset pic of Wind Farm at Albany:
http://imageshack.us/f/811/p1090632a.jpg/
Anybody else have observed in Australia and which part? How was the experience?
