Night Wonders by the Great Ocean Road

The Southern Ocean shore was lit by the moon. It was the end of evening twilight and I was beginning another sleepless night of imaging under stars. This time in the Down Under, at the Twelve Apostles limestone stacks off the shore of the Port Campbell National Park in Victoria, Australia. They are up to 50 meters high. Dazzling Venus is at top with Jupiter below it. These are the two brightest planets in the Earth sky.

But my main target was a little comet. The strange “<” shape halo left of Venus is Comet PanSTARRS (C/2014 Q1). See the next images for a zoom-in on the comet. We have one of these naked-eye comets every year or two while they visit the inner Solar System.

On the Earth the famous rock formations were showing me giant faces in silhouette. An example of Pareidolia, when our brain detect faces in irrelevant contexts such as rocks.

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