Star Safari

Star Safari Stargazing in Wairarapa. Visit our Carterton Observatory, Star Safari for dark skies & big telescopes. Hot chocolate served with every ticket bought
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We are Hari and Sam, an astrobiologist and an astrophysicist and look forward to showing you our night sky.

Awesome night at Star Safari last night, we all got to see C/2024 G3 ATLAS (a comet) and many many other fantastic night...
29/01/2025

Awesome night at Star Safari last night, we all got to see C/2024 G3 ATLAS (a comet) and many many other fantastic night sky objects. Hari managed to snap this really cool picture of the comet over Star Safari!

What an awesome stargazing session! 4 planets 🪐, the International Space Station 🛰️ and a comet!☄️ and it was supposed ...
26/01/2025

What an awesome stargazing session! 4 planets 🪐, the International Space Station 🛰️ and a comet!☄️ and it was supposed to have been cloudy.

Star trails from tonight. The run on fantastic seeing continues, awesome views of Jupiter tonight and there was even som...
22/01/2025

Star trails from tonight. The run on fantastic seeing continues, awesome views of Jupiter tonight and there was even some details visible on Mars!

Had a fantastic evening of observing at Star Safari after watching the comet. Focused on the area around the Southern Cr...
21/01/2025

Had a fantastic evening of observing at Star Safari after watching the comet. Focused on the area around the Southern Cross and looked at some awesome clusters. It helps having a large telescope to see some of these. Here’s a screen shot from the Sky Safari app showing the objects viewed.

We spent last night chasing Comet C/2024 G3 (Atlas) which appeared right on cue over Star Safari and Whitimanuka Retreat...
20/01/2025

We spent last night chasing Comet C/2024 G3 (Atlas) which appeared right on cue over Star Safari and Whitimanuka Retreat under the beautiful skies of the Wairarapa Dark Sky Reserve. A spectacular comet, visible with the unaided eye (squinting a bit but still visible) and really great in binoculars. The bright two stars in the second photo - to the right, are brilliant Venus and Saturn. Fomalhaut, another favourite star is at the top. Canon Ra & Sigma Art Lens 8” f/3.2 and ISO 100. ,

Here's a picture of 47 Tuncanae that we took with Slooh's Chile telescope - we were too busy looking at it. You can take...
19/01/2025

Here's a picture of 47 Tuncanae that we took with Slooh's Chile telescope - we were too busy looking at it. You can take photos like this with Slooh as well - just go to our website and get a subscription for Slooh - https://star-safari.nz/get-tickets/

The Moon this morning! 80% illumination. Fantastic night of looking at planets, clusters, and galaxies before the Moon a...
18/01/2025

The Moon this morning! 80% illumination. Fantastic night of looking at planets, clusters, and galaxies before the Moon arrived.

Here’s the Moon from just before the Full Moon. Taken by carefully holding my phone against the eyepiece on the telescop...
14/01/2025

Here’s the Moon from just before the Full Moon. Taken by carefully holding my phone against the eyepiece on the telescope. It looked amazing rising with Mars last night (the photo is from the previous night).

Lots of planets at the moment, very cool! Here’s Venus with my phone held up to the telescope! ...
14/01/2025

Lots of planets at the moment, very cool! Here’s Venus with my phone held up to the telescope!

04/01/2025

Here’s a short vid of the Moon just now. It’s been rotated 180 degrees by the telescope optics.

A bit of an Aurora last night, nothing like the big displays last year but still cool to see. This is a stacked image fr...
02/01/2025

A bit of an Aurora last night, nothing like the big displays last year but still cool to see. This is a stacked image from my GoPro from last night.

28/12/2024

All sky star trails from last night, including me wandering around with the red light torch at the end. Awesome night for stargazing last night! 📚✨

I just bought Star Safari! Yeah!
25/12/2024

I just bought Star Safari! Yeah!

25/12/2024

Merry Christmas 🎄 from Star Safari. We hope everyone has a great day with family and friends. Be safe on the roads 🚘 and remember to put sunscreen ☀️ on, there’s 368000000000000000000000000 Watts (I hope I typed enough zeros) coming out of that monster at centre of our Solar System!Here’s a time lapse of the sky from the 23rd showing the stars other than the Sun.

The International Space Station has been visible at fairly convenient times lately and tonight is no exception. Due at ...
22/12/2024

The International Space Station has been visible at fairly convenient times lately and tonight is no exception. Due at 10:19pm passing from the SW to SSE at about 36 degrees above the horizon. The screen shot is from the NASA app.

We were lucky to have an invite to the inaugural award of the Prime Minister’s Space Prize for Professional Excellence a...
19/12/2024

We were lucky to have an invite to the inaugural award of the Prime Minister’s Space Prize for Professional Excellence and Student Endeavour. Huge congratulations to the winners - Robin McNeil of Space Ops for the Professional Excellence prize, and Cairo and Tianyi as joint winners of the Students prize. Some very proud parents and teachers were there to share the students well deserved recognition.

There’s our 405mm reflecting telescope all ready to check out some amazing wonders of the night sky. Until it’s dark, th...
13/12/2024

There’s our 405mm reflecting telescope all ready to check out some amazing wonders of the night sky. Until it’s dark, the Moon, Venus, and Saturn will do.

Address

1169 Ponatahi Road, Carterton, Wairarapa
Masterton
5792

Telephone

+6421663808

Website

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Videos

We have some very curious and cute spectators at Star Safari keeping us company over the last few days.

Here’s a short vid of the Moon just now. It’s been rotated 180 degrees by the telescope optics. #wairarapanz #wellingtonnz #darkskyreserve #stargazingwairarapa #astrotourismwairarapa #stargazingnewzealand #wairarapaspace #Destinationwairarapa #milkywaykiwi #nzmustdo #cartertonnz #waisky #darkskywairarapa #IfYouSeekNZ #wairarapa #destinationwairarapa #wellington

All sky star trails from last night, including me wandering around with the red light torch at the end. Awesome night for stargazing last night! #wairarapa #stargazingnewzealand #wairarapaspace #milkywaykiwi #wellingtonnz #darkskywairarapa #astrotourismwairarapa #destinationwairarapa #waisky #Destinationwairarapa #nzmustdo #IfYouSeekNZ #ifyouseeknz📚✨

Merry Christmas 🎄 from Star Safari. We hope everyone has a great day with family and friends. Be safe on the roads 🚘 and remember to put sunscreen ☀️ on, there’s 368000000000000000000000000 Watts (I hope I typed enough zeros) coming out of that monster at centre of our Solar System!Here’s a time lapse of the sky from the 23rd showing the stars other than the Sun.

Star trails tonight at Star Safari! Fantastic night for stargazing. #wairarapa #stargazingwairarapa #wairarapanz #wairarapaspace #IfYouSeekNZ #waisky #stargazingnewzealand #wellingtonnz #cartertonnz #destinationwairarapa #milkywaykiwi #Destinationwairarapa #nzmustdo #astrotourismwairarapa #darkskywairarapa #darkskyreserve

We have a model of Perseverance rover that we take around schools and the students get to drive it. Here’s a timelapse of our rover at Havelock North High School.

Here’s the Moon tonight through our telescope with my phone. #waisky #stargazingnewzealand #destinationwairarapa #wairarapa #astrotourismwairarapa #wairarapaspace #cartertonnz #wellingtonnz #nzmustdo #stargazingwairarapa #IfYouSeekNZ #darkskywairarapa #wairarapanz

Here’s a video of the whole display from just after 8pm through to midnight. The best bit is at the end. #IfYouSeekNZ #nzmustdo #darkskywairarapa #cartertonnz #wairarapanz #wellingtonnz #destinationwairarapa #waisky

Here’s the Moon through our telescope just now! #destinationwairarapa #astrotourismwairarapa #wairarapa #cartertonnz #wairarapaspace #stargazingwairarapa #IfYouSeekNZ #wairarapanz #waisky #wellingtonnz #nzmustdo #darkskywairarapa

Carterton Space Week is finished for another year, what an amazing week! We have the most fantastic community in Carterton. Huge thanks to the fantastic Go Carterton team, cartertondistrictcouncil, WellingtonNZ, and Cimone Grayson for making this week possible. ❤️🤩☄️🔭📷🪐

Here’s the Moon 🌙 tonight. #IfYouSeekNZ #nzmustdo #astrotourismwairarapa #wairarapa #wairarapaspace #stargazingwairarapa #destinationwairarapa #waisky #wellingtonnz #wairarapanz #cartertonnz

Happy World Space Week, Carterton Space Week and 100 Hours of Astronomy, here is a video of Saturn through our telescope tonight. #IfYouSeekNZ #nzmustdo #waisky #darkskywairarapa #wairarapa #destinationwairarapa #astrotourismwairarapa #wairarapaspace #cartertonnz #wairarapanz #stargazingwairarapa #wellingtonnz

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