Te Rangi

Te Rangi Photography and videography of the sky from the Māori perspective

Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) tonight 2 May 2026 at East Gore, Southland after sunset. Still quite faint though. However I...
02/05/2026

Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) tonight 2 May 2026 at East Gore, Southland after sunset. Still quite faint though. However I was able to observe it with 10x50 binoculars.

I captured Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) last night 30 April 2026 at East Gore, Southland after sunset. It was quite faint...
01/05/2026

I captured Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) last night 30 April 2026 at East Gore, Southland after sunset. It was quite faint though. I used a vintage Pentax 50mm lens on my Canon EOS M100 camera body. Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) is the greenish faint fuzzy “star” in the bottom right of the zoomed in image. A very faint tail can seen directed upwards and away from the coma and nucleus.

01/05/2026

A new comet is now gracing our southern skies ☄️

Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) has begun to make its appearance in the Southern Hemisphere after previously being visible in northern skies. While it’s not visible to the naked eye, this faint visitor has already been captured by astrophotographers across Aotearoa over the past few days. Over the coming weeks, the comet will climb higher into the western sky after sunset, but will gradually fade in brightness as it does.

Here’s how you can try to track it down in early May:

• Find a clear, unobstructed view of the western horizon - the comet is still sitting very low.
• Look about an hour after sunset for the best chance of spotting it.
• Bring binoculars, a telescope, or a camera; it’s unlikely to become visible to the naked eye.
• Use the bright star Puanga (Rigel) as your guide, with the comet drifting higher toward it over the coming week.

If you manage to capture it, be sure to send us your photos!

“The coloured side of Te Marama”I took this photo this evening and maxed out on the saturation and vibrance when process...
30/04/2026

“The coloured side of Te Marama”

I took this photo this evening and maxed out on the saturation and vibrance when processing in Adobe Lightroom to reveal regions with different mineralogy. I used a vintage 200mm Pentax lens on a Canon EOS M100 body.

Tupuānuku is a Matariki star-themed sculpture located in Mandeville-Taylor Park, Southland, representing food that grows...
27/04/2026

Tupuānuku is a Matariki star-themed sculpture located in Mandeville-Taylor Park, Southland, representing food that grows in the soil. Created by artist Steve Solomon as part of the Southland Matariki Wayfinding Journey, the, low-design pou features koru, lizards, and birds, reflecting its connection to Papatūānuku (Mother Earth).

Comet R3 (PanSTARRS) is now visible in the field of SOHO's LASCO C3 camera.Image courtesy of NASA and ESA.
24/04/2026

Comet R3 (PanSTARRS) is now visible in the field of SOHO's LASCO C3 camera.

Image courtesy of NASA and ESA.

The Aurora is visible from Gore, Southland tonight. Photos taken with my iPhone 15, 10 second exposure around 8.00pm on ...
18/04/2026

The Aurora is visible from Gore, Southland tonight. Photos taken with my iPhone 15, 10 second exposure around 8.00pm on 18 April 2026.

10/04/2026

A sky full of stars ✨. While conducting their lunar fly-by of the Moon, the crew of Artemis II captured this breathtaking photo of our own Milky Way galaxy, showing the southern part of the celestial sky. The bright patch near the center is the Carina Nebula, while Mahutonga (Southern Cross) can be seen in the lower right side.

03/04/2026

A beautiful, amazing image sent back from the Artemis II crew. This has been posted in a number of sites this morning.

What is not mentioned is the incredible nature of this picture. This is a picture of Earth's >night< side illuminated by the light of the nearly full moon.

In it, you can see:

- Stars in the background (not generally visible when an image of the earth is exposed for the sunlit Earth as opposed to the moonlight-lit)
- A reflection of the moon in the ocean (at the center of the view)
- The bright daylit limb of the Earth in the lower right.
- Zodiacal light in the lower left (sunlight reflected off the thin disk of space dust that orbits the sun)
- The aurora. This image was taken at a time when some solar activity was producing an aurora- the thin green band (with a hint of red) at the top of the image
- Skyglow: A very thin orangish line at the limb of the earth (best seen at the top of the image just to the left of the aurora). This is a glowing region of ionized sodium atoms that sits right around the Karman line, roughly 100 km above the surface of the earth. This marks the "official" (agreed upon) demarcation between "space" and "not-space"- although the atmosphere just gets gradually ever thinnner as one moves upwards.
- Noctillucent clouds. The thin-white line at lower left seems to be high altitude clouds that form around dust in the upper atmosphere, deposited by micrometeors or, perhaps, rocket exhaust. There's aurora there, too.

I would guess that the exposure time for this image was on the order of a few seconds or more [edit: the EXIF data from the original photo shows 1/4th of second exposure at ISO 52,100, which is an incredibly high sensitivity], so the camera had to be held very steady or motion correction was applied in camera.

The live video images you see from Artemis II on YouTube are blocky and low resolution due to the fact that sending a stream from space requires a lot of bandwidth, bandwidth which is committed to important things like, say, telemetry from the spacecraft and data from the astronauts' themselves.

These still images are occasionally sent back in that stream, taking some time to ensure that they are high quality. They are still likely not the full resolution and quality that we will ultimately see.

The flood of images (and video!) we will get when the crew returns home is sure to be wondrous.

Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) is passing through the SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) LASCO C3 coronagraph camera fiel...
02/04/2026

Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) is passing through the SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) LASCO C3 coronagraph camera field of view around April 2–4, 2026.
It is now visible in the bottom left of the latest image.

Image courtesy of NASA and ESA.

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