Southern skies, background story:

In April 2005 we (me and my wife) visited Botswana and also spent a few days on the South African side in Cape Town. The main purpose of the trip was not astrophotography (there was full moon just in the middle of the trip), but rather learn about the activities of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Botswana (see Classes). Of course we also visited a wild animal reserve (see Moremi), and enjoyed the spectacular views of Cape Town (see Table Mountain).

Anyway, when preparing for the trip, I did pack my Canon 300D, a tripod and two wide view lenses (Zenitar 16 mm and Takumar 55 mm) along with a laptop, two other digicams (Sony F717 and Casio Exilim) for terrestrial shots, several battery adapters etc. This equipment was already so heavy that I had to abandon the idea to include my traveling tracking platform (modified from an ETX90RA), and just accept stationary shots from the tripod.

I made some preliminary shots in Gaborone (Capital of Botswana), learning to find the Southern Cross and testing with different exposure times. Light pollution was fairly bad there but then in Francistown (next biggest town in Botswana) we were staying in a guest house outside the city area and there I could on April 18 take a series of fairly decent shots. It was high time because full moon was already on the 24th. Next opportunity to record the Southern skies was then in Cape Town where during 26th to 28th of April there was a widening time slot between the Sun setting and Moon rising, although the city lights of course did disturb.  The flight back to Europe was then already on the 29th of April.