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It’s mid-2022 and I’m still busy!

A brief update on things from myself.

My AOWA business hosting telescopes in the central wheatbelt is going well and I’m looking to get more locals hosting their telescopes in the shared facility, or in a separate RoR observatory, of which I am building a few to rent out. I’m hoping to make the site a useful resource for local amateur astrophotographers over time.

Astro Photography Australia keeps me busy with workshops every month, teaching people how to do astrophotography. These workshops range from wide-field nightscapes to telescope astrophotography. I am upgrading my portable telescope rig to better support the telescope astrophotography enthusiusts, and to use for remote events. You can find upcomin workshops on my page.

Astrofest 2022 is revving up and I’m curating the Astrofest Astrophotography Exhibition again. Entries are open 1st July – 31st July 2022. There’s awesome prizes up for grabs including a brand new Sony A7 IV! Curating this competition and exhibition will take much of my time between now and October 29th.

This RogerGroom.com site is still a bit neglected. I have made some updates to pages recently but I admit the range of images still is low. My focus these days is not on landscape/nature photography or specific astronomy projects like it was in the past.

Meanwhile, I’ve been making some effort to take a few of my own pics among things:

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I am still alive!!

You might be looking at this website thinking Roger Groom is no longer with us. After all, it’s been something like a year since I updated this site. Well, I am still here! Just busy with other things. Life gets busy sometimes.

So why haven’t I been posting here? Well, I have been busy:

  • I still have a day job (amazing, I know!)
  • I am busy running astrophotography workshops (both online via Facetime, Skype, Teams and Zoom) and in person with Perth Observatory, Stargazers Club WA and my own one-on-one workshops at various locations.
  • Astro Observatories Western Australia is a new business I am running in the Central Wheatbelt to remote host telescopes. The site has fantastic world-class dark skies, flat horizons, but, requires an awful lot of work to maintain and improve! So I am spending many days and nights there with my family working on the site.

Here are a few nice landscape photographs from a recent trip to my dark sky property in the Central Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, just to prove I still do take landscape photographs, if not published so regularly!

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Back at Kalbarri

Back at Kalbarri in Westen Australia’s mid-west region for a family holiday, I’ve been snapping some new pics of the area. Fitting photography in around a 1 year old’s eat and sleep routine is not impossible but it does preclude photography at one of the ideal times of day: evening/sunset. So, we make do with what we can!

Kalbarri Jetty (Murchison River)

Sunset rock pool at Kalbarri
Sunset rocks and water at Kalbarri

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Midland Railway Workshops photography

After work one day recently I had some fun photographing the Midland Railway Workshops. There’s plenty more to photograph, but my railway workshops page has a few photographs including the one below.

Midland Railway Workshops
Midland Railway Workshops

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Supernova in NGC 5128

Supernova in NGC 5128 (Hamberger / Centaurus A galaxy), discovered by Australians Peter Marples and Greg Bock of the BOSS team.
Supernova in NGC 5128 (Hamberger / Centaurus A galaxy), discovered by Australians Peter Marples and Greg Bock of the BOSS team.

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Tern Island, Safety Bay

Tern Island, Safety Bay. You wouldn't have thought that just behind me were a bunch of storm clouds rolling through! Early morning.
Tern Island, Safety Bay. You wouldn’t have thought that just behind me were a bunch of storm clouds rolling through! Early morning.

Early morning reflections in The Pond at Safety Bay / Tern Island with storm clouds in the distance.
Early morning reflections in The Pond at Safety Bay / Tern Island with storm clouds in the distance.

Mid morning storms roll across Safety Bay with rain bands.
Mid morning storms roll across Safety Bay with rain bands.

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Storm clouds at The Pond, Safety Bay

Spectator Sport - The Pond at Safety Bay, with storm clouds in the distance and kite surfers.
Spectator Sport – The Pond at Safety Bay, with storm clouds in the distance and kite surfers.

Storm clouds in the distance at The Pond @ Safety Bay, Western Australia. Kite Surfers abound!
Storm clouds in the distance at The Pond @ Safety Bay, Western Australia. Kite Surfers abound!

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Storm Clouds Brewing

"End of the world" apocalyptic feel to this storm cloud over Midvale, Western Australia.
“End of the world” apocalyptic feel to this storm cloud over Midvale, Western Australia.

Storm clouds over Midland Oval, Western Australia.
Storm clouds over Midland Oval, Western Australia.

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Broome Photos Uploaded

Camels on Cable Beach with the spectacular sky and sand.
Camels on Cable Beach with the spectacular sky and sand.

New images from Cable Beach at Broome have been uploaded to my Norht-west photography gallery.

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Appreciation for observations

NASA Rosetta observation certificate of participation
NASA Rosetta observation certificate of participation

This is a nice gesture. In 2014 I recorded observations of the comet that the spacecraft Rosetta (with Philae lander) was approaching over many nights, providing these to Padma who collated such data from amateur astronomers. It’s nice to have something in appreciation of the efforts.