Birrung

It's 2019,  the Year of Indigenous Languages, so I'm resolved to learn as much as I can about the Dharawal language and put it into practice over the year.  This post will feature lots of stars hence the title birrung.

Close-up of the Barnards Loop emission nebula.

This pic is a close-up from one of lots of identical pics captured in last nights all-night effort, which when combined for noise reduction will show the setting of the birrung of Orion over the South Island. Including the Orion, Flame and Horsehead nebula here at centre but also the elusive Barnards Loop of gas (probably) ionised by the Orion Nebula. It stretches a lot further as will be seen in the final image - this image is almost straight from camera (some quick colour correction in Camera Raw) - it's 200 seconds at f2.8 on a 50mm lens and Ha-modded Nikon D5100, tracking with a Skyguider pro. Very pleased with first capture as clouds were rolling through until about 2am and then it cleared up by 3am for an hour so there should be at least 16 clean flats, hopefully enough when combined to get a better, reduced-noise final image.

A few years ago I noticed that some cool videos from Broulee were online, where I first learned the Dhurga welcoming/farewelling phrase walawaani which got me wondering about the original language for Wreck Bay/Shoalhaven - which seems to have been Dharawal. And now I see that there are lots more on line resources, academic papers and dictionaries including one from Les Bursill in Worrigee near Nowra.

Interestingly, our second son's gaiyara appears in this dictionary. We named him Mani as it has a few Koori meanings, from 'equal to the first' to rock wallaby in Bundjalung country. Now we discover, as he plans his high school career in marine biology, that it means fisherman in Dharawal!

 As (to quote one of the wonderful stories in Anita Heiss's growing Up Aboriginal in Australia)' I'm growing into aboriginality through not being brought up in an Aboriginal community it's going to take a while to absorb it all - one day I'll head back to Nowra a to find out  as much as I can about my Nana Walsh's life at Wreck Bay and nearby.

The aim of last night's allnighter capturing several hours of duplicate images of Barnard's Loop surrounding  dhungagil (Orion's Belt ) was to make a noise corrected composite of the birrung and the sea across to the South island of Aotearoa. I've still to do the combining/noise correction but I have made the first combine of the ocean foreground and tracked birrung.

Barnards Loop part II. Rosette Nebula at top right and the faint clouds at bottom right are obscuring part of the Loop below the yellow red birrung Betelegeuse.

But as well as creating photographic art I would love to document our birrung stories from Yuin country, using video and animation. One of those life-time goals that has to wait for the right time.

Looking forward to putting the final image together, but it may have to wait for commercial work and prep for our 23 Jan Gardens Magic gig!