Winner of the Milkyway from your backyard competition
The winner has been announced, every image was great but there has to be a winner and our congratulations goes to Richard Bohner of Arizona (yes he is a member of CMHASD) with this marvellous image taken from his back yard.
The Winner of the ‘Milkyway from my back yard’ competition. Image by Richard Bohner Taken with Canon 6D with wide angle lens at 24 mm at iso 1600 for 60 seconds. Jupiter & Saturn at far left with Sagittarius Teapot to left of galaxy and constellation Scorpius to right of galaxy. Taken on 15 June in Arizona, USA. (Richard lives in the USA so this is a valid entry)
Milkyway from my back yard competition
This is a simple competition, take an image of the Milkyway from your back garden – or close to where you live. The winning image will be the one that the webmaster is most impressed with.
Rules:
- You have to be a member of the society
- No telescopes! This is for camera and lens only!
- Must be from your location not some superb dark sky you travelled to.
- Ends November-ish
What will impress the Webmaster most?
- It’s all about effort taken and obstacles overcome.
- Local sky conditions vs image captured
Good luck!

mage by Leigh Slomer 26 light frames at 75 seconds ISO 800. 15 darks frames 20 flat frames Equipment used: Canon EOS200D Sigma 30mm f1.4 EX DC HSM lens @ f2.2 Skywatcher Star Adventurer tracking mount. Processed in Deep Sky Stacker and GIMP

Image by Leigh Sloamer I made an attempt at capturing the milky way last night. This is a 14 x 3 minute stack at iso 3200. I would have captured more but my new lens is a dew magnet. I also had to crop the image a bit due to amp glow in the lower left corner.
Image by John Archer Thought I would pop out and snap the Milky Way while the evening is still mild and the breeze has died down. Bit of a change from planet spotting….

Image by Honor Wheeler finally found this image of the Milky Way taken from my back garden on the evening of the 23rd of August 2014. I’d just got back from the cinema and the sky was amazing. As you’ll see it was a single shot with my Canon 1100D on a tripod, no tracking! Black and White as light pollution was an issue.
Image by Richard Bohner Taken with Canon 6D with wide angle lens at 24 mm at iso 1600 for 60 seconds. Jupiter & Saturn at far left with Sagittarius Teapot to left of galaxy and constellation Scorpius to right of galaxy. Taken on 15 June in Arizona, USA. (Richard lives in the USA so this is a valid entry)
The Moon Saturn and Jupiter
Image by Steve Goldson.
The Pleiades, Mars and the California Nebula
In April 2019 Mars was close to M45 (the Pleiades) and NGC 1499 and this coincided with the Kelling Heath Star Party. Unfortunately at this time of year Taurus is very low, setting in the late evening making this a difficult object to image, my attempts to stack and then process with Deep Sky Stacker were hopeless, so I turned to Astro Pixel Processor (using a 30 day free trial) which has a very easy to use light pollution killer, this allowed me to remove the gradient that resulted from the very low elevation and trees that crept into the field.
Total exposure is 84 minutes, from 30s subs. Tracking was achieved with an iOptron Star tracker, camera was a Canon 600D with a full spectrum mod and a CLSCCD clip-in filter.
All images are copyright. Permission must be sought to from the image owner to the use of any of these images.