Toby's Sky Tours

16/10/2024

Pomponderoo Hill last Friday night. The auroral phenomenon STEVE was magnificent! I got to the hill a little too late to catch Steve in full force. This Little Desert nightscape includes the city lights of Horsham.

27/09/2024

An image capture from my telescope Celeste this evening. The Triffid nebula (M20) is quite unique in that it has a dark nebula, emission nebula (pink), and reflection nebula (blue) all in one location!

27/09/2024

Ready to rumble.. when the telescope is aligned!

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11/05/2024

Absolutely amazed at the aurora display tonight! During a peak in activity we get a STARLINK train as well!!

11/05/2024

More aurorae!

11/05/2024

11/05/2024

Happy Mother's Day!

11/05/2024

Aurora overhead right now! Ignore the orange skyglow from Horhsam and Dimboola. The aurora is pink and green.

01/05/2024

Amazed at the capabilities of Electronically Assisted Astronomy (EAA). During a sky tour in Horsham this evening I pointed the telescope at the galaxy M65 in the constellation Leo. From the light polluted site in Horsham this galaxy was barely visible and my guests couldn't see it through the eyepiece. I switch on the camera and capture a few minutes worth of data and the galaxy pops out on the laptop screen! Even finer details such as dust lanes are visible. This form of astronomy scales well to large groups and makes it possible for folks who can't reach the eyepiece, or can't see well enough to observe faint objects. If you'd like to book a private sky tour then by all means get in touch and together we can make it happen!

30/04/2024

Get Ready for the Sky Tour and Telescope Upgrades!

24/11/2023

Hey everyone! Just some updates for the Christmas period.

1. The new booking portal is a place where you can see available private sky tour slots and even make a booking. The website and booking button is here: https://tobyskytours.square.site
2. Geminids meteor shower is on the night of 14th December.
3. A public sky tour is scheduled for the 16th December on the outskirts of Horsham. The moon, Jupiter, and Saturn are well placed for viewing at the moment. This is the last public sky tour of the year, but private tours will continue to be available over the Christmas season. The link for the booking tool is here https://calendar.app.google/sTZZcAJ2QVqSBKL49

Have a wonderful Christmas season, and I look forward to seeing you on a tour soon!

08/11/2023

Back from a beautiful weekend with the Astronomical Society of Victoria's Annual AstroFest at Sea Lake! At the event were photography tours, live solar viewing, deep sky objects with a huge array of telescopes, talks from the astro community, and a beautiful aurora on Sunday evening! It was really special seeing such an awesome display from the shores of Lake Tyrrell!

03/11/2023

Wonderful weekend of public astronomy events ahead, and the weather is going to be superb! At Nhill on Friday night there is the VicSouth Star Party, https://vicsouth.info/current.htm, and on Sat-Mon is the Astronomical Society of Victoria's AstroFest at Sea Lake! https://asv.org.au/SeaLakeAstroFest See you there!

The VicSouth Desert Spring Star Party, held annually at the Little Desert Nature Lodge near Nhill.

14/10/2023

Hey folks! The weather is starting to get warmer, and more beautiful clear nights are on the way! Bookings for sky tours are starting to fill up for the Christmas period, so if you'd like to reserve your experience then now is the time to get in touch!

23/06/2023

Hey folks, the weather is looking good tomorrow night (24th June) for a public sky tour in Dimboola. It is going to be very cold (8 degrees!) but clear, and the winter Milky Way is looking amazing! Please DM if interested in attending!

17/03/2023

Getting ready for tonight's Telescope Workshop and Sky Tour!

04/03/2023

Hey folks, introducing my new telescope Celeste! She is a 9.25 inch Schmidt Cassegrain from Celestron and is one serious instrument! A telescope similar to this one is used on the International Space Station and Stephen Hawking's favourite telescope was the 11inch version. A similar scope to this even starred in an episode of the TV series Big Bang Theory. Celeste can track with the sky and find objects even under bright moonlight, which is perfect for large groups and patchy weather! When you book a sky tour you can have exclusive use of the telescope for an evening and enjoy what she can show you!

20/02/2023

After our sun, Proxima Centauri is the next closest star to Earth at a distance of 4.25 light years. The star (circled) is a red dwarf and has just over a tenth of the Sun's mass. Interestingly the dwarf has two known explanets, and one of them (Proxima Centauri b) lies within the star's habitable zone where liquid water can exist. It is doubtful that life can exist there, because the star undergoes flares with levels of X-ray emission similar to that of our sun. Due to the low brightness I'd never seen our closest stellar neighbour before and it was lovely to share the experience of tracking it down with a close friend!

10/02/2023

Live demo at Dimboola market. It's a little cold this morning but lovely to hear what experiences people have had with comet 2022 E3 (ZTF).

28/01/2023

Had a lovely time at Jung market today!

15/01/2023

Had a lovely time doing a sky tour for a family on Friday night, celebrating a special life event under the stars. We got to see Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and a number of beautiful deep sky objects like the active galaxy M77. In the picture below is a snapshot of the event. See if you can see the meteor!

06/01/2023

It is just about full moon (Saturday 7th Jan) and the next window for dark skies will be (Tuesday 10th - 24th Jan 2023), with a special window for observing the moon on (24th - 31 Jan 2023). Given the amazing weather we are having, it is an ideal time to book your night sky experience. Jupiter and Mars are pristine objects for the evening right now, and the delights of the summer Milky Way such as the Orion and Eta Carina nebulas are well placed for viewing.

05/01/2023

The Eta Carina nebula is a huge starforming region about 8500 light years away. It is over six times futher away than the Orion nebula and 20 times bigger in radius. In the literature there is mention of a special structure called the "Keyhole Nebula", however I couldn't seem to make out a keyhole in the beautiful deep images of the region. It wasn't until I took a low quality shot of the central part of the nebula on my phone that I actually saw the keyhole structure! To the left of the Keyhole is the bright star Eta Carina. It is one of the most massive stars known, and predicted to end its life as a spectacular supernova!

31/12/2022

Had a wonderful time last night at a private sky tour with a family right here in Dimboola. One of the amazing things that happened during the night was a transit of the shadow from IO (one of Jupiter's moons) across the face of Jupiter. While these events are fairly common it was still a dramatic sight! The image here is a screenshot from the planetarium software Stellarium. It shows a clearer picture of what we saw through the telescope. See if you can see the black dot that is IO's shadow!

29/12/2022

The open cluster M46 is a collection of stars that were born in the same nebula, and are loosely coupled together gravitationally. It's kind of like a family. Like family members, stars grow old, and depending on their mass some stars throw off their outer layers before spending retirement as white dwarves. These layers thrown off are visible as a beautiful planetary nebula. There is planetary nebula (NGC 2438) superimposed on this open cluster. See if you can spot the green ring!