Welcome to Rolf Wahl Olsen's astrophotography galleries of the beautiful Southern skies, taken from my observatory in Auckland, New Zealand.

I enjoy taking images that are unusual, either being of a rarely imaged object, or a familiar object presented in a new way. On these pages you will find deep sky images of exotic objects like the circumstellar disc of Beta Pictoris, gravitational lenses, quasars, distant galaxy clusters and extragalactic globulars. These obscure targets often have a very interesting story to tell.

I have been interested in astronomy as long as I can remember. In 1990 I got my first telescope, a 60mm alt-az refractor. A couple of years later I upgraded to a 100mm refractor on an equatorial mount and in 1995 I got a 10 inch f/5 Newtonian reflector. I still use the optics from this one today, but in 2011 I built a new Serrurier truss optical tube assembly for it.

In 2003 I ventured into the world of astrophotography. I have been taking images with a long exposure modified webcam until early 2012. A lot of thanks go to Steve Chambers for pioneering in the area of long exposure modifications. I have since upgraded to a QSI683wsg CCD camera which I now use to take all my images.

I grew up in Denmark but emigrated to New Zealand in 2003. I was attracted by the scenery and lifestyle, and the beautiful Southern sky is just amazing.
My observatory is located in Titirangi in the foothills of the Waitakere Ranges west of Auckland, New Zealand. The sky is relatively transparent here, due to the general low levels of air pollution and high altitude dust in the Southern Hemisphere. It is also reasonably dark, being close to a large rainforest reserve and the nearby Tasman Sea.

If you would like to use any of these images please contact me and ask for my permission first.

Ordering prints

You can easily order high quality prints of any of these astrophotos! Please use the menu bar above to find your favourite images and there you will be able to buy prints and choose from a selection of sizes and media types.
I also offer a special range of Large Format Posters for sale with some of my best images.