Menootabootery at The Bay; final days - the last. Honest.

My flight out of Hervey Bay was not until after lunch. Trish and I decided a short walk on the beach was called for.

We found some lovely shells to add to Trish's collection. However, we also got wet, as a sharp shower dropped upon us. Soon enough we were saying our farewells. Just for now.

Tucker Turtle was amazingly forgiving of being squashed into the cabin bag. Despite acquiring a small handful of other things too, I remained within legal limits!

Now, just to round off this visit to QLD, let me share with you something I managed to obtain with the Hisstix on my third night there. I must tell you, I had no great expectations. The moon... okay, yes, I knew I'd get something. What I wasn't ready for was the other little shiny dot - do you see it there down at the bottom right of this full frame?

What do you suppose that might be? Well, m'dears, THAT is Jupiter. What is more, when I went the full 25x stretch of the Hisstix's lens, it was beyond belief that I managed to get not just Jupiter itself, but no less than three of its moons!!! See, here's the proof...

To obtain this with that little camera just blows me away. It has to be said that the air was very dry and there was no refraction going on (unlike here in the Bonny Land), but still. Not only did I get this, but I managed a shot of the Southern Cross and the Pointers also. For this, I did twiddle in post-processing, as the pure black of the original did not necessarily display the stars strongly and untrained eyes might not know what to select. So forgive the graininess of the background, but concentrate on the two 'pointers' at left and the Crux constellation at right (five stars).

This constellation goes around the Southern sky exactly like the hand on a clock. The South pole (celestial) is in the dark space at which lines, drawn from each of these, intersect. Are you interested? Then click here...