Living out in the country isn't for everyone but, for Rookie Reporter Joe, it's perfect.
Because out away from the lights of the city is the best place to see the millions of stars
up in our sky.
He loves it so much, he even built his own telescope and weather balloon to capture photos
of it all.
Here's Joe's story.
G’day I'm Jonah and I live in outback Queensland, near the town of Cecil Plains.
I'm an apprentice diesel mechanic and I help out my dad on our property.
Living out here might not appeal to everyone but it's actually the perfect place for stargazing
and I love it.
I started getting interested in space a few years ago.
I'd looked at all the cool photos of galaxies and gas clouds in magazines and wonder what
else was out there.
Then I got my first telescope when I was 15.
After a while I decided I wanted to upgrade to something a bit bigger so that I could
see more but big telescopes are really expensive!
I love to design and build stuff so I got to work and built this one myself!
So the starlight comes through the top of the telescope, down the tube, and is reflected
off the primary mirror, back up the tube, off the secondary mirror and into the camera.
I've taken photos of planets, galaxies and comets.
One of my photos was even featured in the magazine that first got me interested in astronomy!
But I wanted to see even more.
I really wanted to get a photo of the blackness of space and the curvature of the earth but
to do that I needed to get really high above the atmosphere and after some research I figured
out that'd be possible with a weather balloon.
The whole thing took me about four months to organise.
There was a lot to do, like experimenting with different cameras, seeing if they can
work in different conditions and choosing batteries and a GPS.
I also needed to make a parachute and the box that the cameras would sit in.
I spent the next few weeks waiting for the perfect weather conditions but finally it
was time to launch!
When I let the balloon go it was really exciting and a little bit concerning because it's out
of your control now.
This is just the neighbour’s paddocks, it's spinning around because of the wind and then
it just goes up and up, right into the edge of space and it's cool to know that that's
our space, right above us.
Our place is just right down underneath us at the moment.
The weather balloon went about 33 kilometres up into the sky.
That's in the stratosphere, where the ozone layer is.
Up there, the balloon stretched to about 8 metres in size.
Then it burst!
So you can see all the little fragments of the balloon, also the parachute flapping around.
The rope got caught on the camera pole out the side and it's falling sideways.
It took about half an hour just to fall and that's when things went a bit wrong.
The GPS unit in the balloon failed so I had no way to find out where it had fallen!
We did mail, made flyers and put them all in the mailboxes of the whole area.
But five weeks later I had some luck.
Someone found it on their property about 50 kays away.
He was spraying the weeds in his sorghum and had seen my payload lying in his paddock and
that was awesome to hear that.
I got the payload back safe and sound and I was really stoked to see all the footage.
It was just what I'd hoped for.
I'm planning to send another balloon up into the air in a few months, this time at night
so I can get some awesome photos of the Earth, as well as hopefully capture some shots of
the Milky Way!
And after that, who knows?
When it comes to space, the possibilities are endless.