Focale · Field Log · Lat −42°

The sky the northern
hemisphere never sees.

For two months I'm in Tasmania to bring a Southern-Hemisphere observatory online — a 50 cm telescope now, a 1.3 m to follow — and turn it on the sky the north never sees: the Magellanic Clouds, Carina, the galactic core overhead. Get the free target guide, and follow the build.

Dec −69° · What you've been missing

A different sky begins below the celestial equator.

From a dark site at 42° south, targets that never clear the horizon in Europe ride high all night. Here are a few of them — with the declination that explains why you've never shot them, and when to catch them on a winter trip.

  • The Magellanic Clouds — LMC & SMC
    DEC −69° / −73° · circumpolar from −42°

    Two satellite galaxies of our own, naked-eye bright. They never set from Tasmania — best framed in the pre-dawn hours during austral winter.

  • The Carina Nebula — NGC 3372
    DEC −59° · austral winter, low & westward

    Four times the size of Orion's, wrapped around the unstable star Eta Carinae. A southern showpiece with no northern equal.

  • Omega Centauri — NGC 5139
    DEC −47° · early-evening west

    The largest globular cluster in the galaxy — millions of stars in a single resolvable ball. From Europe it barely scrapes the murk.

  • Centaurus A — NGC 5128
    DEC −43° · early-evening west

    A galaxy split by a thick dust lane, the aftermath of a merger. Bright, structured, and a rewarding intermediate target.

  • The galactic core — Sagittarius
    DEC −29° · overhead on winter evenings

    The bulge of the Milky Way passes near the zenith here, not flattened against the horizon. The single biggest reason to point south.

  • Aurora Australis — if you're lucky
    Geomagnetic south · clear nights, dark sky

    Tasmania's latitude puts it under the southern auroral oval. No promises from the sky — but the field log will be watching.

Focale.space Your astronomy memory. Enriched.
The deal

One signup, three things.

Now

The southern-sky target guide

A field-ready PDF: what to shoot below the equator, the declinations, the seasons, and how to frame each one. Lands in your inbox on signup.

Jul – Sep

The field log from Tasmania

Not just captures — what it actually takes to bring an instrument online. The frames we manage off the 50 cm, the things that broke, the fixes. Shot on a phone and a drone, sent occasionally while I'm under the southern sky — not a daily newsletter.

At launch

Early access & the launch price

When the full southern-sky product opens, you're first in line — and you get the launch price before anyone on Instagram.

The mission

I'm Cédric — an astronomer by training, and the person building Arcsecond (used by professional observatories) and Focale, for amateur astrophotographers. This trip isn't a photo holiday: I'm in Tasmania to help bring a real observatory online — a 50 cm telescope first, a 1.3 m to follow — and to see what it can actually do under the southern sky.

I'm not promising perfect frames. I'm travelling with an iPhone and a drone; the deep-sky images come off the 50 cm as we get it working, and some nights that means fighting the instrument more than shooting the sky. You'll get the real version — what worked, what didn't, and what it takes.

That's the thread I care about most. A pro commissioning a 1.3 m and an amateur perfecting a backyard rig work at wildly different scales — but the gremlins are the same: pointing, focus, cabling, software, weather, patience. I want Focale to sit right on that line, and to connect the people who build their setups with real care, whichever side they're on.

Before I leave on the 15th

Get the guide. Come south with me.

Free target guide now, the build log through the trip, early access at launch.