It was 4am on a Sunday morning, and Darryl Jones had just been rattled awake when he noticed something peculiar outside his window. It was a hazy light creeping in through the clouds outside his Lauder home.
Jones quickly grabbed his iPhone, ran outside and took a few images of what he initially thought was a star or a planet. As it turns out, the astrophotographer may have just captured images of China's latest rocket launch, the Long March 12.
Jones has been practicing astrophotography for nearly 45 years. He's captured all sorts of celestial events and areas of the night sky, including the Aurora Australis, often visible from the Otago region.
He says the photos he took on Sunday were "nothing special".
"They were just on my iPhone, anyone could've walked out the door and taken that photo ... the special thing was looking out my window at the right time.
"It was around 4:05am in the morning, there's sort of been a bit of rural activity lately and I'm a pretty light sleeper. It's not uncommon for me to wake up at 4am, 4:30am. Quite often I go for a walk at that time of the morning, particularly this time of the year because the sun's just about to come up and you see lots of nice things in the sky.
"I looked out and there was this bright thing, and the haze around it, I initially thought, 'Oh, it's just a cloud that's making the haze around a star or planet'. Then I'm thinking, 'Hold on, no, there shouldn't be anything there at this time of the morning'. And then I actually noticed it was moving."
Jones quickly crossed UFOs from his mind and consulted an app that identifies and tracks major satellites and space stations. It wasn't any of those things either.
The kerosene-fuelled, 62-metre-tall rocket is China's latest effort towards stronger launch capabilities and a crewed moon landing before 2030.
Jones is originally from Invercargill but spent most of his life in Arrowtown before moving to Lauder in late 2020.
He says the small Otago town is a prime location for astrophotography.
"We've got some of the best skies in the country, it's dark and generally the weather here is pretty stable, so most of the nights are clear. We're pretty much in the middle of the country, there's no light pollution from cities, the air is clear ... it's just the ideal place to do something like that."
"A lot of New Zealanders don't know this, but a lot of the world's leading atmospheric research is done at NIWA in Lauder, that's a world-renowned facility ... there might not be much here, but there's a lot of off-the-radar activity."
Jones first picked up the camera and pointed it at the sky in the 1980s, but he's always been interested in space and astronomy ever since he was a child.
"Dad was right into it so he sort of fostered that, then I went and joined the Astronomical Society of Invercargill and it just sort of grew from there. Back in those days it was all on film, so totally different ... it's a lot easier to do nowadays with digital cameras. Astrophotography's not easy by any means, but it's easier than it used to be."
"It's impressive, China's space programme is not that old so they've come a long way in a short time really ... it's a coincidence I just happened to look out and see it."
