The dust storm had its origins in South Australia and reached the coastline of New South Wales not long after sunrise. The dust had traveled more than 1400 kilometres (about 880 miles). It was an eerie experience. The orange and red glow streamed through the curtains and I immediately grabbed my camera and went outside to diocument the experience.

The Sydney Morning Herald has created a site dedicated to the event and there is also a Flickr group ~ The Red Sydney Project The Dust Storm Days. I took the first nine photographs on the morning of the 23rd September 2009, from my home, of the suburb in which I live. The final five photographs were taken three days later on the 26th September when a less substantial dust storm also crossed the region early in the morning. The sun was nicely filtered by the dust. A display of fourteen images can also be viewed over at my online gallery.

There were some very strong gusts early in the morning, well before sunset, so I climbed out of bed, got dressed, brewed some coffee and sat out by the back deck to observe the impact of the wind. I felt it was a good idea to keep an eye on our home and those of our neighbours just in case any decided that they wished to shift their location to one east of their current position.

As I sat and waited for the coffee to finish brewing I observed that some of the higher altitude clouds were beginning to show hints of red as they captured the rays of the sun which was still well below the horizon from my perspective on the ground. I grabbed my camera and took a number of photographs of the clouds to the west, south and east. Those shown are not in any chronological order. It i simply the order in which I resized them.

That night I duplicated the photo, adjusted the levels to provide some contrast and a deeper blue sky. I applied a little Unsharp Mask to make the moon appear a little more crisp. A cropped copy of the finished result is visible below. I have not enlarged the moon. The original image is available here. A cropped 800 x 600 copy is here. I was surprised that the camera and the telephoto lens could capture the moon so well without a tripod and longer exposure.

Note the mark in the upper right hand corner of the original? A speck of dust on the sensor which has eluded all efforts to remove it. I use a tool or two in Photoshop Elements to remove the dust artefact from the photograph if it is an issue. I do not think I shall buy a D-SLR again. The dust is a nightmare despite all my best efforts to keep the camera dust free when changing lenses.

Do not forget that 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy.