PDog Astrophotography

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PDog Astrophotography

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10/09/2026

Northern and Southern Lights

With aurora season in the north starting I thought I’d share some of my favorite moments of both the northern and southern lights that I have experienced. The first three were taken in Norway and the last three were taken here in Victoria Australia where I live.

The aurora borealis definitely has the more spectacular naked eye shows but the aurora australis is pretty cool in its own right with colors that range from yellows, reds, pinks, and even blue hues. I am pretty fortunate to have experienced both and I hope we get some more amazing displays in the coming years.

Which is your favorite?

07/09/2026

Tom and Eva lookout in the 12 Apostles Marine National Park, Victoria Australia with the arching Milky Way core overhead.

Located along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, this is one of those places you have to see to believe. Only a few hours drive from Melbourne city, this rugged eroding coastal landscape is full of beautiful views and sea stacks everywhere. I have seen so many amazing images from here both at night and daylight that I had to come and get my own version. It’s hard to do this view justice but I ultimately tried to fit in as much as I could of both the landscape and the sky. Shot with a Nikon Z8 and a Nikon Z 14-24mm at 20mm for both the sky and foreground. I also took a full pano of the H-Alpha for integration, to be able to see all the emission nebulae in the arch.

Which is your favorite crop?

04/09/2026

The dead trees of Lake Toolondo silhouetted by the light of the night sky.

One of the reasons I love astrophotography is the fact that what you capture can never be seen with the naked eye. Out there under the stars is darkness with only a faint light from the stars. Bringing the images to life is the magical part to me that takes me back to that very moment.

Which one do you prefer 1 or 2? Milky Way core or Magellanic Clouds with colorful airglow?

Both are 20 image stacks taken with a Nikon Z7ii and the 24mm f/1.8 prime lens with Z mount. It’s a great lens for astrophotography and with a 1.8 aperture, it’s captures tons of light.

30/08/2026

Remastered 2026

Bodie Island Lighthouse in Nags Head North Carolina with the Milky Way standing vertically beside it.

This shot is what started it all for me. I took this back in July 2018 while on a road trip to photograph the night skies in the Outer Banks of NC. A beautiful part of the eastern US coast, it’s a place I hold near and dear to my heart. I submitted this to the Astronomy Photographer of the Year and was shortlisted for it. Although I didn’t win the category, it was a huge honor to have it exhibited at the Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England. Since then I’ve been on a mission to learn as much as I possibly can of this craft called Astrophotography. It’s been a life changing journey after leaving the Marines in 2017 but I haven’t looked back. Now I’m fortunate enough to pass on everything I’ve learned (and still learning) to others who are curious about our night skies and universe.

I wanted to re-edit this 9 image stack and add a new technique that wasn’t really a thing back when I took it, by adding Hydrogen Alpha to the mix. I had a dataset of H-Alpha at the same focal length as I took this from here in Australia, and all I had to do was flip it the right way and register it to this image so everything lined up perfectly. It taught me that you can use shots of hydrogen alpha from anywhere in the world as long as it’s the same focal length and region of the sky. So keep those Ha shots because you can reuse them.

25/08/2026

The Milky Way setting along the Great Ocean Road and the 12 Apostles Marine National Park in Victoria, Australia.

A magical place only a few hours outside of Melbourne that not only has spectacular coastal views but also some of the darkest skies you’ll find.

Shot with an astro-modified Nikon Z8 and Nikkor Z 14-24mm lens at 18mm.

20/08/2026

The Milky Way rises over volcanic sea stacks at Cathedral Rocks, Kiama Downs, NSW.

There are some incredible places to explore along the NSW Coast and I can’t wait to venture up that way again in the future. The town of Kiama and Wollongong are so close here that you do get some light pollution adding some side lighting to the rocks but since you’re shooting out towards the open ocean, it is dark enough to capture some nice shots of the Milky Way core during the first half of the year. A magical place for night and seascape photography. Shot on a Nikon Z8 and Nikkor Z 14-24mm lens.

14/08/2026

South Bruny National Park and the rising Milky Way in Tasmania.

Counting down the days to get back here! 🤩🥰 Bruny Island is a special place in daylight but even more special after dark. With some of the darkest skies you can find and pure raw beauty, Bruny Island is a nature paradise.

Shot with a Modified Nikon Z7ii, Nikkor Z 14-24mm S lens, Nomad tracker.

05/08/2026

Dark nights in Big Bend National Park, Texas are a thing of beauty 🥰💜🌸

A bit off the beaten path to find some flowers to photograph with the Milky Way but with the timing of the cactus blooms this past year, there weren’t too many flowers to be found when I went. After a bit of a walk and exploring I found……..one. 😂☝️ However, with the amazingly dark skies the core stole the show and made the one flower look so pretty. 🤩 You can see the iconic Mule Ears peaks in the background but from this angle they look more like horns. I’ll definitely be taking another trip there and thanks to for introducing me to the area! What a trip!

Foreground is a blue hour blend plus focus stacked, and the sky was tracked for four shots and stacked. Shot with an astro modified Z8 and a nomad tracker.

01/08/2026

The Milky Way core rising above Two Tree Point on beautiful Bruny Island, Tasmania.

Here’s the final image from the time-lapse I shared in my last post. This is a blue hour blend and was probably one of the most challenging masking jobs I’ve done so far. After… I don’t know… give or take 20 attempts, I finally landed on something I’m happy with. 😂 It’s probably still not perfect, but that’s all part of the learning process.

Swipe across to see the mask I created along with the tracked sky that was blended into the final image. I photographed the foreground during blue hour, then moved just to the right of this location where I had a clear view of the sky. From there I captured multiple tracked exposures for both H-Alpha and RGB. I planned the composition in PhotoPills beforehand so the Milky Way would sit exactly where it naturally would have appeared.

Blue hour blending can produce incredible detail in the landscape while keeping a natural-looking sky, but it can also be one of the most difficult techniques to master, especially with complex foregrounds like trees and dense bushes. I could have simply stacked the entire image to avoid the masking, but I wouldn’t have had the same level of control. Editing the foreground and sky separately before blending them together allowed me to get a result that just isn’t possible with a single stacked image.

Shot with a Nikon Z7ii and tracked using my Nomad.

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