Andy Latta — Amateur astronomer/Astrophotgrapher

Hi, my name is Andy Latta from Langkoop/Victoria/Australia.

I’m so lucky to live in a Bortle 1 area so every night I can enjoy the night sky as it has been for eons and not yet spoiled by light pollution.

I’ve always had a stirring interest and fascination with everything astro and this stems from being a 4 year old, watching the Apollo moon landings live on a black and white TV with my family. This experience has cemented my passion of astro from an early age right up to the present.

I've got so many firsts it’s hard to choose from but the first time i saw an Aurora must have been the most awesome experiences I’ve ever had.

Back about 30 odd years ago I when I lived in Hobart/Tasmania I was asked to drop a friend off one night at his house in Strathgordon which was over 150 km away into the rugged west coast of Tasmania. I didn’t mind doing the 300km or so round trip but being night and a long winding road with so much wildlife it was going to be a slow trip. A couple of hours in and with zero traffic there were some headlights off in the distance so I dipped to low beam which seemed like forever but the lights sort of disappeared but after a few corners there were beams off in the distance so i dipped my lights again but the same thing happened.......no car?

This happened about 3 or 4 times so I pulled over at a siding to actually see what was going on, We thought maybe it was shooters spotlighting but we were in the middle of the southwest national park so that wasn’t it. The lights beams were back and then we realised we were in the middle of a very intense aurora! We turned off the car and our eyes slowly adjusted to the best show i had ever seen in the night sky. I’d never actually seen it before but it was incredible as it was so high in the sky. There was only a little bit of red but mainly white and green beams wavering like a giant sheet.

I suppose we were in some of the cleanest air in the world with no dust and no lights for a hundred kilometres but looking south there was not a single person until you hit Antarctica!! We stayed there for hours and it’s a strange thing that i swear you hear it crackle!! Not sure if it was or just my brain in sensory overload! Such an incredible show and id say it was more intense than the recent May 11 Aurora.

Well this is one of my “firsts” of so many that I have with Astro but one of the most incredible, and mesmerising moment I will never forget.

Andy

Editor note: Andy is one of the luckiest astronomer and astrophographers I know. He lives in Bortle 1 skies and his images are absolutely stunning. I’ve also had the please of taking to him several times of the years via video call and we talk about all things from his love of rock music to his intimate knowledge of NASA rockets!