Introduction

I’ve always been interested in the night sky from very early on in life, but never realised how amazing it really was until I moved to New Zealand in 2003. Prior to this, I lived on the Gold Coast, Australia - a city with so many bright lights, that you could only ever see a few stars in the sky at night.

Now I'm very fortunate to live in the Wellington region on the bottom of the North Island of New Zealand. Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand, but the region is blessed with dark skies and beautiful landscapes. You only need to travel 15 minutes out of the centre of Wellington city to the south coast, and you can easily see the glow of the Milky Way with the naked eye. A 90 minute drive to the east, over the Rimutaka Ranges and into the Wairarapa, gets you amongst some of the darkest skies in New Zealand and the World, where the southern sky shines at night with millions of stars above the remote and rugged landscape.

I remember the first time I experienced the night sky in the Wairarapa - it was at the coastal village of Castlepoint on a perfectly crisp and cold winter’s night in June. I went outside of the batch I was staying at to get some firewood, and as I looked up at the night sky, I almost tripped over myself! Right above me I could see the bright band of stars of our Milky Way galaxy stretching from the eastern to western horizon, and the galactic core seemed so bright, that you could see it reflecting in the lagoon on the beach below me.

I ran back inside to get my Canon 40d camera and tripod to attempt to capture a photo of this. My photo was no where as near as stunning as what I had seen with the naked eye - in fact, my frame was pretty much black, but this was the moment that ignited my passion for photographing the night sky.

Since then, I have spent many hours under the night sky, attempting to capture the magic for all to see. Planning, patience and persistence is the name of the game – believe me, some of my planned shots have taken me over a year to get right. Constant obstacles from bad weather and bad timing to landslides and equipment failures all make it a very frustrating pursuit. But in the end, after all the failures when you finally do nail the shot, astrophotography then becomes one of the most rewarding forms of photography there is...it has certainly been one amazing journey of self discovery for me, and I am very humbled to be able to share these images with you.

Mark Gee

Introduction

I’ve always been interested in the night sky from very early on in life, but never realised how amazing it really was until I moved to New Zealand in 2003. Prior to this, I lived on the Gold Coast, Australia - a city with so many bright lights, that you could only ever see a few stars in the sky at night.