We may have missed the Full Moon, but we’re definitely not going to miss the opportunity to come together! This October, the Full Moon Mashup has been transformed into a New Moon Mashup.
Dr. John Goldsmith will be joining us on October 22, 2025, to deliver a talk titled “Astrophotography Inspiring a Creative World.” He will explore how he merges astrophotography with art to celebrate the cosmos, landscape, culture, and community, highlighting projects from Western Australia and beyond. Dr. Goldsmith is widely recognised for his collaborations with Aboriginal communities, including the Australia’s Cultural Night Sky project, first OAD supported project in Australia.
Summary of the talk:
In Western Australia, Dr John Goldsmith (founder of www.celestialvisions.com.au) is combining astrophotography, live music, performance events, exhibitions and collaborative projects to share his love of the cosmos, landscape, culture and community. He collaborates internationally on astrophotography projects and is a leading proponent of images with integrity, in our global astrophotography community. In this talk, Dr Goldsmith provides an overview of recent initiatives and a selection of superb wilderness landscape images that reveal extraordinary views of the cosmos, from Western Australia. Dr Goldsmith collaborates with Aboriginal communities and is a leading proponent behind Australia’s first ever astro4dev funded project “Australia’s Cultural Night Sky: Culture, Creativity and Community at Lake Ballard, Western Australia”. This extraordinary project, in conjunction with Koya Aboriginal Corporation, has enabled adolescent Aboriginal students to witness a remarkable astronomical sight, the heart of our Milky Way galaxy passing directly overhead, at one of Australia’s most important dark-sky locations at Lake Ballard, Western Australia. Dr Goldsmith’s visits to South Africa include the Communicating Astronomy with the Public Conference, Cape Town, and he has presented at Scifest, Makhanda, Eastern Cape.
Further reading:
- Goldsmith, J. (2023). Visions of the Cosmos: Landscape Astrophotography from Western Australia. Celestial Visions, Western Australia.
- Goldsmith, Dr J. (2023) A Vision for Ethical Astrophotography Sky’s Up magazine, July 2023. pp54 – 57, https://explorescientificusa.com/pages/skys-up
- Goldsmith, John (2014) “Cosmos, Culture and Landscape. Documenting, Learning and Sharing Aboriginal Astronomical Knowledge in Contemporary Society” PhD Thesis, Curtin University, Western Australia. https://espace.curtin.edu.au/handle/20.500.11937/665
- Schidlowski, Christian. (Director) (2017) “The Borderless Sky, The Aboriginal Sky of Australia” Film production: Taglicht Media, Berlin.
Profile: Dr John Goldsmith
Dr John Goldsmith is a Western Australian based astrophotographer, author, exhibition development and founder of Celestial Visions, (www.celestialvisions.com.au). His PhD “Cosmos, Culture and Landscape” (2014) investigated Australian Aboriginal astronomical knowledge. He is a member of The World at Night (twanight.org) and has participated in numerous international photography collaborations. He features in “The Borderless Sky, The Aboriginal Sky of Australia” Taglicht Media, Berlin, and he provided location support for Werner Herzog’s “FIREBALL Visitors from Darker Worlds”. Dr Goldsmith is the author of three books on astrophotography, the latest being “Visions of the Cosmos, Landscape Astrophotography from Western Australia”. Dr Goldsmith collaborated with the WA Museum, to help create the Western Australia by Night astrophotography exhibit (Origins Gallery). In 2025, Dr Goldsmith collaborated in the first project from Australia, to be funded by Astronomy For Development (Astro4dev.org).
