australia
astro + photography adventure workshop
an outback oddysey, australia
April 11 - 20, 2026
Join Derek Culver and award winning Kiwi photographer Tom Rae as we tour you around and teach you the art of night photography under the darkest night skies in the world deep in the Australia Outback and along the Great Southern Coast, of South Australia! Australia is an untapped gem of potential for night photographers; the Southern Hemisphere night sky catalog is filled with colorful Nebulae, huge Galaxies like the Magellanic Clouds, and stunning diamond like constellations that most of us do not have views of from the Northern Hemisphere.
April is the best time to shoot astrophotography in South Australia as the summer months cool down, the nights get long, and several stunning parts of the Southern Night sky are available to shoot all night along with the best orientation of the Milky Way core for stunning panoramas! I’ve travelled all over the world, and Australia has the darkest skies, and you don’t have to sacrifice modern luxuries to enjoy them.
Our goal is to help you realize your creative potential, provide lessons to equip you with new creative techniques, guide you safely to world class night photography destinations, and send you home with amazing photos and unforgettable memories! Tom Rae will be one of the highlights of this trip, he is a young but incredibly gifted teacher with a serious talent for capturing the night sky; people end up loving his accent just as much as his passion for teaching others.
After a week of astrophotography adventures in the outback under the darkest skies in the world, we take it easy along the Great Southern Road, our editing lessons in cafe’s by the ocean, with relaxed astrophotography sessions along the coast like this one above!
logistics and lodging
We start on Saturday April 11th in Adelaide, South Australia
We end on Monday April 20th at 10am in Adelaide, South Australia.
Once in Adelaide, we provide all transportation and lodging throughout the trip including pick up and drop off from the airports! We’ll be staying at various accommodations throughout the outback and along the coast, mostly single occupancy but while deep in the Outback we may have to share some common spaces.
difficulty and group size
This astrophotography workshop is great for all levels of adventurers and photographers, and requires some modest hiking (all under a mile) with camera gear on uneven surfaces at night and is best suited for astrophotographers who are ready to take their images to the next level and jump into tracking and panoramas.
We will cover astrophotography basics like single exposures, and build upon shooting and editing fundamentals as we get into tracking, stacking, panoramas, and combining exposures. Our small group size, 6 students to 2 teachers (some workshops have 12 students and only 2 teachers and call that small… crazy!) allows us to tailor lessons individually and give lots of 1on1 hands on instruction under the stars. We do quite a bit of editing throughout the trip and also provide custom editing videos.
location highlights
Flinders Range
Lake Gardnier
Murphy’s Haystack
Yanardbie White Sand Dune’s
Streaky Bay Beaches
Coffin Bay National Park
Pink Lake, Lagoons, and various beaches
workshop cost & payment terms
The tuition for this workshop is $7,000 total. A non-refundable deposit of $1,500 is required to reserve your spot with the remaining balance due 60 days before the workshop starts. Alumni, please reach out for a discount! Payment plan options are also available at check out.
itinerary
April 11
Meet in Adelaide, in South Australia on April 11th! Ideally if you are flying in from the US we recommend to leave the 8th or 9th, as you lose a day travelling and another day basically vanishes because of the time zone change! You are welcome to fly all the way out in one go, often people will book their ticket to Sydney, stay the night and adapt, then fly out the next day early on the 11th.
Once we all gather in Adelaide, we’ll do an intro and start heading out to the Flinders Range!
For the full itinerary or questions about this trip, please contact us in the form above or email adventures@blazingheavens.com
australia gallery
