Gulf News – Dubai _ 20th July 2020 
​
Congratulations on the successful launch this morning of the Hope Probe, by the United Arab Emirates,
​(UAE) their first spacecraft to another planet!

UAE to Mars: Historic Hope Probe takes off
The UAE Hope Probe rocket launched as planned at 1.58am UAE time in perfect weather at the Japan launch site.
https://www.emiratesmarsmission.ae

​Gulf News – Dubai _ 19th July 2020 
The UAE's Hope Probe (Al Amal in Arabic) is the first Arab interplanetary mission.

This is my first image of Mars for 2020 and it’s already showing some detail on the planets surface with the bright South Pole looking spectacular, every two years Mars comes close to our Earth as it orbits the Sun. The date for this year’s opposition of Mars will be on the 13th October 2020. The planet is still far away so its size is very small with a diameter of only 12.7” and magnitude of -0.8 (Taken from Astronomy 2020 Australia edition)
 
I took this image when conditions were not very good as the planet was still low in the eastern sky and cloud was starting to come over the sky, views should get a lot better in the coming months.
​That is, if dust storms don’t cover the planet like they did in 2018!
 
Mars is exhibiting a gibbous phase because part of its disc is not being seen fully illuminated by the Sun as seen by us here on Earth. As Mars reaches opposition the Suns light will fully illuminate its surface, just like when we see a full moon in the sky. This will be the best time for observers to view and take images of this amazing red planet.
 
My image was taken on the 2nd July 2020 with a Meade LX200 GPS 10 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and ZWO 120 MC-S camera with 3x Barlow lens attached. An AVI movie with 900 frames was captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4. 

To read an excellent article about these three missions please go to ABC Science written by Genelle Weule.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-07-13/nasa,-china-and-uae-missions-to-mars/12412312
 
Some website links below to follow these journeys to Mars in 2020: 
NASA Perseverance Countdown to Launch website at:
https://mars.nasa.gov
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/timeline/launch/
Mars 2020 Mission Perseverance Rover
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/overview/
 
Emirates Mars Mission
https://www.emiratesmarsmission.ae
China National Space Administration
http://www.cnsa.gov.cn

(By Seeker)
https://www.seeker.com

Saturn is now at prime viewing with opposition on the 21st July.  The northern hemisphere of the planet has been tilted our way while the rings have been fully open, but now part of the southern hemisphere is coming into view and the rings are again closing up.  
 
Saturn and Jupiter are now close in the sky on the ecliptic, this astronomical event only happens once every 20 years (or to be exact 19.6 years).  So keep and eye on these two gas giants as both planets slowly edge closer and closer for a spectacular conjunction on the 21st December 2020.
 
I love the way I’ve managed to capture the different coloured bands on the planet and the subtle colours of the gaseous atmosphere and the most amazing thing to think about is Saturn is over 1.4 billion kilometres away from us!
 
Saturn is the most beautiful planet in the solar system because of its stunning ring, now that the Cassini spacecraft is not there up close and personal we have to make do with the view through our telescope eyepiece…. Oh, I so miss the Cassini Spacecraft and the excitement of all the wonderful discoveries it made.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/cassini/overview/
 
My image was taken with a Meade LX200 GPS 10 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a ZWO 120 MC-S camera and 3x Barlow lens attached. An AVI movie with 1500 frames was captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4. 

Late in the evening on the 1st of July, I finally got to image Jupiter for the first time this year, mainly because of all the cloudy weather we’ve been having.
 
I was amazed to see yet again how the area around the Great Red Spot has changed and there appears to be a dark red marking below the (GRS). As all the four main satellite moons of Jupiter were on show orbiting the planet, this is not a shadow transit, so I’m assuming it may be a small active storm.
 
There is another interesting feature, a large white oval storm in the South Temperate Zone that was not there last year. Usually these white oval areas are quite small, I’m finding this intriguing too. Jupiter is so interesting to observe because its turbulent atmosphere is always changing :-)
 
Jupiter comes to opposition on the 14th July and is closest to Earth for viewing, it will rise in the east at the same time as the Sun sets in the west on this date.
 
The image was taken with a Meade LX200 GPS 10 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope at prime focus with a ZWO 120 MC-S camera and 3x Barlow lens attached.
​An AVI movie with 1200 frames was captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4. 

The sunspot is now looking very small in the 127mm refractor telescope as it rotates towards the western limb of the Sun on the 11th June 2020. During this afternoon observing session I was racing against time as cloud was coming all across the western sky.
 
After taking some images with the refractor I quickly removed it off the Pro HEQ5 mount and replaced it with the Lunt 60mm solar telescope to try and capture some images in Ha. (I always use this tracking mount when using both these telescopes)
 
It was really lucky to get a break in the cloud to capture just two AVI movie movies of the area with the Ha telescope before the whole sky clouded over and that was that…no more observing!
 
The white light image was taken with a 127mm refractor telescope that was fitted with a glass solar filter and using a Canon 700D camera.

​Just one image was captured with an exposure time of 1/320h second and ISO400.  The Ha image was taken with the Lunt solar telescope and a ZWO ASI120MC-S camera attached capturing an AVI movie file and stacking in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.

The late afternoon sky looked just so pretty with the colours of pink and blue in the eastern sky and the neatly full Moon rising between the bands.
 
If you look to the eastern sky after the sun has set you will see this astronomical phenomenon know as the Belt of Venus it’s also know as the Girdle of Venus too. This dusty pink band layered between the blue sky above and the lower deep blue-grey band below runs all along the horizon before sunrise or after sunset.
 
It’s related to our Earths shadow which extends millions of kilometres out into space, so next time you are watching a beautiful sunset take a moment to turn around and see if you can see this spectacular phenomenon low in the eastern sky.
 
I have just found this very interesting website called World of Phenomena that explains the ‘Belt of Venus’ very well along with a lot of other incredible phenomena that you’ll find in the world and up above:
https://www.phenomena.org/atmospheric/beltofvenus/
 
Wikipedia ‘Belt of Venus’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_of_Venus
​

The both images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens on a tripod.

​The wide field image is cropped to a vertical image and the exposure time was 1/160th second with ISO400. With the lunar image the lens was set at 400mm with an exposure time of 1/250th second and ISO400, eight images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4, image was also cropped.

It was quite late in the afternoon by the time I could finally take an image of this new sunspot on the surface of the Sun. I was having a lot of trouble trying to get some close detail on the sunspot and really could not understand why?
 
After packing up, I looked up towards Mt Tamborine and saw the reason why, a huge forest burn off was taking place and a large plume of smoke was spreading across the western sky. Because of where my telescope was setup between the two houses I was unable to see this smoke, Oh well, at least I was lucky enough to got some images of the sunspot even though they were a bit smoke affected :-)
 
My images were taken on the 5th June 2020, with a 10inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope that was fitted with a glass solar filter and using a ZWO ASI120MC-S camera with a focal reducer attached. The full disc image was taken with a Canon 700D camera, exposure time was 1/500th second and ISO200, 12 images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4. The sunspot looked quite small on the full disc of the Sun.

This new sunspot is from the next Solar Cycle 25, please read more about this from
​Dr Tony Phillips who pens the excellent website Spaceweather.com
https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2019/12/25/reversed-polarity-sunspots-appear-on-the-sun/
 
Another site to keep a daily eye on the Sun is NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) at: https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov

When I looked out my window late this morning, I saw this most amazing colourful ring right around the Sun. I flew downstairs, grabbed my camera and ran outside to capture it before it disappeared. I tried to block out some of the bright Sun with a wild grass plant that I found in the garden and it worked perfectly J
 
There is a lot of science behind one of these 22-degree halos around the Sun and for it to be displayed for us to see there has to be the right shape and size ice crystals in the sky. I’m always on the look out for them when this high cirrostratus cloud in covering the sky, you also can see a lunar halo when the Moon is in a larger phase…. so as I always say keep looking up, you never know what you’ll find!
 
To find out more please go to a couple of informative websites below:
Les Cowley, Atmospheric Optics website at:
https://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/circular.htm
​
There is an excellent explanation and diagrams on how a Sun Halo is produced on the
WW2010 University of Illinois website at:
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/opt/ice/halo/22.rxml

Image taken with a Canon G7x Mark11 on manual focus, with ISO125 and exposure time of 1/200th second.
(Be very careful not to look directly at the Sun, use your camera screen to safely compose the shot)

I could not believe my eyes when I looked outside late yesterday afternoon and saw this most beautiful rainbow in the sky; it was so vivid in colour and right before my eyes a double bow developed. As I moved around the garden I could see its reflection in the water…it was just stunning!
 
I had to keep running inside to change lenses to capture the whole rainbow and finally settled on my Tokina fisheye 10-17mm lens set on 10mm to capture the double rainbow. When I went out onto the boat pontoon I was so surprised to see that the reflection in the water made a full circle rainbow…how cool was that :-)
 
Images were taken on the 24th May using a Canon 70D camera and assortment of lenses grabbed very quickly from my camera bag using a Canon 10-20mm lens & Tokina fisheye lens.

To find out more about rainbows please go our own
​Australian Government Bureau of Metrology (BOM) website at:
http://media.bom.gov.au/social/blog/899/ask-bom-how-do-rainbows-form/

I took this photo of Venus in the late afternoon sky with those pretty purple and pink colours of dusk still in the western sky after sunset. I was in the car park of the Helensvale train station and had to rest the camera on the bonnet of my car to get a steady image of the planet.
 
Image taken with a Canon G7x Mark11 camera on manual focus with a 1/20th second exposure time
​with ISO125 at 5.36pm.