Starpoint Australis

Sunday Skies ✦ Captured by Brendan Mitchell | THROWBACK IMAGE

Four galaxies in one field the Grus Quartet is a compact group of galaxies found in the southern constellation Grus, the Crane.

The quartet is made up of NGC 7552, NGC 7582, NGC 7590 and NGC 7599, with each galaxy showing a noticeably different shape and orientation. Look beyond the main four and the frame is packed with even more faint galaxies scattered amongst the foreground stars.

Brendan captured this one from Karijini National Park in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, taking advantage of the incredibly dark skies to collect 10 hours of full-colour data.

Heavily Modified Sky-Watcher 12" f/5 (running at f/5.75)
Starpoint Australis SP 3.5" Focuser (Prototype)

Total integration: 10 hrs

Remember those electronics drawings we shared a little while ago? Well… they’re not just drawings anymore.

The first run of VELA 9 circuit boards has been manufactured and delivered, along with what can only be described as a small mountain of electronic components waiting to find their new homes.

Next up, Brendan will populate the boards and find out how well everything translates from the screen into the real world.

And, because this is prototyping, there’s also one very important question to answer…

Where has he gone wrong? Because finding that out now is exactly what V1.0 is for

Remember when Brendan said you wouldn’t believe how many individual components go into building a filter wheel?

Well… he wasn’t exaggerating. 😂

Belts, screws, bearings, springs, gears, memory cards and a whole lot more started arriving ready for the first Vela 9 prototype.

At this stage we’re still prototyping, so cheaper components are used where possible. There’s no point going all-in when assembly might uncover something that needs to change and if there’s one thing we’ve learnt, something usually does.

The plan was to have everything ready so the moment the manufactured parts arrived, Brendan could start putting Vela 9 together.

Sunday Skies ✦ Captured by Steve Paxton

Sh2-308, often called the Dolphin Nebula, is a vast bubble of ionised gas located roughly 5,200 light years away in the constellation Canis Major. The nebula surrounds the Wolf–Rayet star EZ Canis Majoris, whose powerful stellar winds are blasting material outward into the surrounding interstellar medium.

These winds carve out the enormous spherical shell seen here, causing oxygen-rich gas to glow strongly in blue while hydrogen emission reveals faint red structures throughout the region. The expanding shock front continues to sweep up surrounding material, shaping the delicate filaments and wisps that give the nebula its distinctive dolphin-like appearance.

Captured over several nights, this narrowband image highlights the strong oxygen signal dominating the region while also revealing the subtle hydrogen structures embedded within the surrounding gas.

Sky-Watcher 200mm f/4 Premium Photo Quattro Reflector
QHY268M | Sky-Watcher NEQ6 Pro (Hypertuned)
Antlia Filters (LRGBSHaO) | QHYCFW3 Filter Wheel
Sky-Watcher Aplanatic Coma Corrector | Starpoint Australis SP3 Focuser | ZWO CAA Rotator
SVBony 50mm Guide Scope | QHY5L-II-M Guide Camera

HaOIII Combination with RGB stars

Total integration: 17h 40′
Ha 300s × 100 | OIII 300s × 100
RGB 60s × 30

What is a product if it’s just a plain boring box with a big company name slapped across it?

Apparently, this question can consume a ridiculous amount of time. 😂

We spent days chewing the fat over what the Vela 9 should actually look like. I had one vision, Brendan had another, and then we made the mistake of asking our nearest and dearest what they thought… who promptly bum-steered us in completely different directions to where either of us started.

After going around in circles for the better part of a week or two, we eventually removed all the noise and went back to just the two of us.

What did we want Vela 9 to look like?

Because by this point it wasn’t just about putting our logo on the front. We wanted the graphics, markings and little details across the Vela 9 to feel like they belonged there and were part of the product itself.

So out came the CAD drawings, a few different concepts… and even a full-size paper printout slapped onto the 3D prototype because sometimes you just need to see the bloody thing in front of you. 😂

The final design we landed on is something Brendan and I are incredibly proud of, and honestly, it’s become one of our favourite parts of the Vela 9.

We also know design is never a one-size-fits-all situation, so we’re fully expecting a few critics. We’re waiting for you. 😂

We’ll happily keep showing you everything else as this story continues…

But the final front plate?

That one you’re going to have to wait until launch to see. 😉

Sunday Skies ✦ Captured by Carlos Taylor | Carlos Taylor

It’s not hard to see where the Dark Wolf Nebula gets its name. Stretching across the frame in Scorpius, thick clouds of dark dust create the unmistakable silhouette of a wolf against the surrounding red glow of hydrogen-rich emission.

The Dark Wolf sits within a much larger star-forming region, where dense dust and gas obscure much of the light behind it. Around the darker structure, young stars and glowing hydrogen reveal just how active the surrounding region really is.

Carlos captured this one using a Ha-OIII multiband filter, building more than 23 hours of data over four nights to bring out the contrast between the dark foreground dust and the emission surrounding it.

Sky-Watcher Quattro 250P / 10-S
ToupTek ATR585C | Sky-Watcher EQ6 Pro
SVBony SV220 7nm Ha-OIII
Sky-Watcher Quattro Coma Corrector | Starpoint Australis SP3 EAF | ZWO CAA

Total integration: 23h 20′
Multiband 600s × 140

Remember the detent hub?

The one that helped prove Brendan's theory of "if it works well in plastic, it'll work even better in metal"... by not working particularly well in plastic at all. 😂

Well, it finally made its way back onto the redesign list.

What you're looking at here are some of the simplest components in the entire Vela 9 but simple doesn't mean you can just send a sketch to the manufacturer and hope for the best.

Every dimension, tolerance, surface and fit still needs to be defined so the parts that arrive back actually work the way Brendan intended them to.

The original plastic prototype had already shown us what didn't work.

Now it was time to turn those lessons into something that would.

At this point, the Vela 9 development started splitting in every direction.

Things were no longer happening in a nice neat order. They were happening in parallel.

3D print models were being tested and changed. CAD models and 2D drawings were being prepared for manufacturing. Electronics were being designed and revised. Final artwork was being developed. And everything needed to integrate into the wider Starpoint universe of products.

We're a two-person band here, but when it comes to the engineering behind the Vela 9, the brains are very much a one-man band.

Brendan was constantly jumping between designing, testing, finding problems, remodelling and figuring out how every change affected everything else.

We've been showing you this journey since July, but the development behind it has been in motion for the better part of three years.

Let's just say he's finally got the hang of wearing all the hats. 😂

And all of them were now working towards one pretty exciting moment...

The Vela 9 was about to go from theoretical to real.

Sunday Skies ✦ Captured by Brendan Mitchell

Digging through some older data, Brendan came across this one again - the Tarantula Nebula, captured from Tammin in broadband colour.

There is a ridiculous amount going on in this part of the sky. The Tarantula itself dominates the frame, but look beyond it and there are huge areas of nebulosity, dark dust, star clusters and an absurd number of stars spread right across the image.

We often see this region pushed hard in narrowband, but there’s something about seeing it in broadband that Brendan really likes. The natural colour throughout the surrounding star field gives a completely different perspective on just how busy this part of the Large Magellanic Cloud really is.

Heavily Modified Sky-Watcher 12" f/5 (running at f/5.75)
QHY600L | Sky-Watcher EQ8-Pro (Gen 1)
Starpoint Australis SP 3.5" Focuser (Prototype) | SP Vela 7 (Prototype Gen 1)
Antlia Pro L | R | G | B Broadband Combination

Total integration: 5h 10′
L 600s × 8 | R 600s × 8 | G 600s × 8 | B 600s × 7