Mt John (1)

Look carefully at the top of the small hill in the middle of the photo and you will see New Zealand's premiere observatory, Mount John, which is operated by the University of Canterbury. The main telescope is an extremely nice and easy to use 1 meter reflector. There are several other telescopes on the "mountain" as well.

There's plenty of snow around but lots of sunshine too. After we had spent a couple of days on the mountain the weather closed in and the whole landscape was covered with snow (have a look at the view from the top in other photos).

Golden tussock, pale blue sky and sparkling white snow provide a clean, clear look to this picture. The mountain itself isn't in the middle of the frame which can look too artificial, its about a third from the left and below the centre line. The sun is fairly low which provides shadow and some texture to the landscape.