Ben Levis Photography

18/01/2026

Another unusual cool night for this time of year presented itself and the opportunity to camp under the stars was impossible to resist.

Lots of people pay plenty of attention to the winter milky way skies, but there's also plenty to see (and photograph) during the summer as well. This is a particularly famous region of the sky containing the constellation Orion (Centre Left) and part of Canis Major to the right. Sirius is the brightest star in Canis Major, and also the night sky, and is on display here at frame right.

Several red emission nebula are seen prominently with an assortment of diffusely lit interstellar gas and dust filling in the gaps.

I'm still playing around with new software, so colour results are not as consistent, and with a longer exposure time I'm sure I could tease a bit more detail out in the fainter dust clouds but its a pleasant image nonetheless.

Camera: Fujifilm GFX100s (Full-Spectrum mod)
Lens: Fujifilm GF 55mm f1.7 .0
Exposure: 56min (2min subs) ISO 3200

19/05/2025

It was nice to get under some dark skies for a change to photograph the milky way. Completely jagged the polar alignment by eyeball resulting in untrailed 4min exposures which I was chuffed with.

This is a single image, cropped due to the Perth light pollution bubble making itself quite obvious. Aside from exposure and saturation tweaks it is as it was captured in camera.

Fujifilm GFX100s (unmodded)
Fujifilm GF 20-35mm f4.0 f4.0
Single 120sec exposure, ISO 3200
Formatt Hightech nightscape filter fitted to lens

18/01/2025

It's been a while since a comet has been easily viewable from the southern hemisphere. Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) has survived it's divebombing of the sun and is now on its way back to the outer solar system. In the mean time we get to enjoy the view until it fades and finally disappears in the coming days/weeks.

The comet is visible in Australia's evening sky in the western horizon. It will appears as a faint pinprick of light with a tail streaming away from it. Although visible with the naked eye, binoculars will allow you to view the comet much more clearly. 

The comet will appear a little higher in the sky each evening, and remain visible as the sky darkens.

02/01/2025

Taken from the exact spot I first witnessed the Aurora Australis way back in April 2001.

Back then, I skipped school the next day in favor of staying up all night to watch the show. A stark contrast between the two events, nearly 25 years apart, is the huge prevalence of excess light pollution from Perth City. That being said, last night was an enjoyable start to the new year and these fireworks don't upset the local canine population.

Happy New Year everyone!

Fujifilm GFX100s
Fujifilm GF 20-35mm f4.0
Formatt Hitech Firecrest Nightscape Astro Light Pollution Filter
20sec at f4.0 ISO 3200

03/12/2024

15/10/2024

When you try to photograph two rare celestial events within the week and mother nature tells you to sod off...

No chance of seeing Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS last night with all this in the way, but I scored a nice image of the clouds during twilight nonetheless.

I'll have to settle for the view up north with no camera tonight..

11/10/2024

Aurora Australis overlooking Mundaring Weir 11/10/24.

11/05/2024

Well its been over twenty years since I've seen the Aurora Australis (Southern Lights) and they certainly did not disappoint last night!

The first of six incoming coronal mass ejections slammed into Earth's magnetic field just after midnight, sparking a G5 Extreme Geomagnetic Storm, the strongest storm in almost twenty years. I was treated to near clear skies for the duration of natures finest lightshow until just before sun-up where I noted the Zodiacal light and the aurora were intermingling in the east.

Interestingly the 'light pollution' from the aurora was so intense that it easily overwhelmed the milky way (which is a sight itself under dark skies!)

To see the aurora and photograph its presence taking up significant portions of the sky was quite a treat. Streamers and a red glow were easily visible to the naked eye up to 40deg in elevation from the horizon with photographs revealing the display going up to near the zenith.

All shot with a Fujifilm GFX100S with a GF20-35mm f4.0 wide open at 20mm, ISO 6400 and 25sec exposures.

The zodiacal light was an 8min exposure with the same setup at ISO 160.

09/05/2024

Sunspot AR3664 in comparison to the sunspot that unleashed the Carrington Event back in 1859.

The Carrington Event was the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history, peaking from 1–2 September 1859 during solar cycle 10. It created strong auroral displays that were reported globally.

Auroras were seen around the world in both northern and southern hemispheres. The aurora over the Rocky Mountains in the United States was so bright that the glow woke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning. People in the northeastern United States could read a newspaper by the aurora's light. The aurora was visible from the poles to low latitude areas such as south-central Mexico, Cuba, Hawaii, Queensland, southern Japan and China, and even at lower latitudes very close to the equator, such as in Colombia.

A geomagnetic storm of this magnitude occurring today would cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts, and damage due to extended outages of the electrical power grid.

No such luck with a major event thus far but it’s up there with one of the biggest sunspots I’ve ever seen!

14/10/2023