It was one of those days when high cirrus clouds were on display for most of the day and I was on the look out for Sun halo’s and sundogs.
 
Finally, I was rewarded with one high up in the afternoon sky, I kept watching for some sundogs to develop but the clouds began to thicken and that was the end of that…but I got my solar halo ‘Yay!
 
Image taken with a Canon G7X Mark11 camera on manual focus, the exposure time was 1/320th second, focal length 8mm and ISO 200.

Sunspot Group AR2860
It’s lovely to see another large sunspot group on the Sun and its very active; there are a lot of little areas of sunspots that are spread out across the solar disc for quite some distance.
 
Because of the cloudy weather, I was only able to take some quick photos with my camera and lens on a tripod; I waited until there was a gap in the clouds then fired away as quick as I could to capture these images.
 
I’ve also included below a short movie of the clouds passing quickly across the face of the Sun, that looks quite awesome :-)
 
The images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Canon 100-400mm lens @400mm plus a 2x tele converter making a focal length of 1280mm.  A glass solar fitter was fitted to the lens.
 
Twenty images were captures with an exposure time of 1/500th second and ISO200, then stacked in RegiStak6, processed in PS CS4.
 
DANGER…PLEASE NOTE: Never look directly at the Sun without a proper solar filter attached to your camera lens or telescope. (See my attach image)

I’ve been watching and taking pictures of Jupiter & Saturn with the Moon over the last couple of nights on the beach as you can see from my previous Astroblogs. 
 
Tonight though, Jupiter had a close meeting with the full Moon and it looked just lovely in the early evening sky at 6pm.
 
If you look closely at Jupiter you can see three tiny moons beside the planet. (Quite incredible you can pick them up with just a zoom camera lens!)
 
We are away at the moment and these images were taken at a beautiful place called Cotton Tree Holiday Park at Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast.
 
I used a Canon 70D camera and an 18-400mm Tamron lens on an ordinary tripod, the exposure was 1/8th second and ISO100.

The full Moon image above was taken later at 6.20pm using the same lens set at 400mm, with an exposure of 1/60th second and ISO100. (15 images were taken and stgacked in RegiStax6 and processed in Photoshop CS4)

It was such a beautiful evening with the nearly full Moon between the planets of Saturn and Jupiter rising above the ocean on Cotton Tree beach at Maroochydore. (Jupiter is now at opposition)
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Because it’s Saturday night, there were lots of people still walking along the beach enjoying the bright moonlight on the water…Image was taken with a Canon 70D Camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens @18mm, the exposure time was 10 seconds and ISO 400.

~ Jupiter above Ocean at Opposition ~
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Jupiter is only a couple of days away from opposition, so I was very excited to take the opportunity after sunset to race down to the beach and set up my camera and tripod in the sand dunes and capture some pictures of Jupiter appearing above the horizon on the ocean…You’ll also see Saturn above Jupiter on the ecliptic.

It was a beautiful sight to see :-)

My image was taken at Cotton Tree Beach at Maroochydore with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens set at 20mm, the exposure time was 3.2 seconds and ISO1250.

We are away at the moment on the Sunshine Coast in QLD and the weather today was just perfect!

When I looked up into the afternoon sky I saw this bright gibbous Moon embedded into a beautiful clear blue sky…. a few hours later at 10pm, I went back outside and took some more images in the dark night time sky :-)

The orientation of the Moon is how it’s seen here in the Southern Hemisphere… I used a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens with a 2x tele converter making a focal length of 1280mm that was attached to a camera tripod, both images are cropped.
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The exposure time for the daytime image was 1/50th second and ISO 100, the night time image exposure was 1/80th second and ISO 100, 10 images each were captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.
Have fun looking for a daytime Moon :-)

Venus was only 5 degrees away from the crescent moon this evening in the western sky; the tiny bright red star just below the moon is called Omega Virginis in the constellation of Virgo.
 
Because it was only a three-day-old moon, there was some lovely earthshine showing up on the lunar surface.
 
Image taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens @400mm, the exposure time was 2 seconds and ISO800.

Earthshine is a very pretty phenomenon that only occurs when the Moon is close to the Sun as the reflected sunlight from Earth softly illuminates the dark portion of the lunar surface.
 
You will see it a few days after new Moon (waxing crescent) in the western sky or a few days before new Moon (Waning Crescent) in the eastern sky; keep a look out for it an hour after sunset or an hour before sunrise.
 
Canon 70D camera and Tamron 18-400mm lens @400mm, one second exposure and ISO800.

The beautiful ringed planet Saturn has just passed opposition and is at prime viewing in the eastern sky. The planet is just stunning to look at through even a modest size telescope, so please try to go outside and have a look at our own Solar Systems ‘Lord of the Rings’ planet ☺
 
I took these images a few nights ago with a Meade 10 inch LX200 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a ZWO 120 MC-S camera. AVI movie files were captured with 3000 frames and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.
 
In the second image below you can see four of Saturn’s largest moons, Titan is the farthest away with Tethys, Rhea & Dione closer to the planet. This second image is a composite, as I had to overexpose Saturn to capture the faint moons. A wide-angle lens was attached to the ZWO camera to give a wider field of view to capture all the moons on show.

On the evening of the 7th August I captured some images of Jupiter with its four largest moons all on display and on the one side of the planet.
 
The moons of Jupiter are in constant motion orbiting the planet and they can be so exciting to watch as they disappear behind the planet in an eclipse or transit across the face to create a dark shadow on the surface of the planet. This is sometimes referred to as  ‘The dance of the planets’ and it’s like looking at a mini solar system in action.
 
There is an excellent planetary app called Gas Giants that helps greatly with identifying which moons are orbiting Jupiter & Saturn right at the time of viewing. You will find the free app at:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gas-giants/id397831483
 
I took these images with a Meade 10-inch LX200 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a ZWO 120 MC-S camera and 3x Barlow lens. AVI movie files were captured with 3000 frames and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.
 
In the second image below I’ve marked the Galilean moons. This image is a composite, as I had to over expose Jupiter to capture the fainter moons. A wide-angle lens was attached to the ZWO camera to give a wider field to capture all the moons on show

Venus is now shining like a lighthouse beacon in the western sky and is catching a lot of people’s attention as they walk their dogs or jog in the early evening.
 
Last night I set up my telescope to capture some lovely images of Venus in its gibbous phase and even though the planet was quite steady, its brilliant light was refracting all the colours of the rainbow because of our turbulent atmosphere. It really looked very pretty, so I’ve posted an image of what it really looked like as viewed in the telescope and captured with my camera.
 
The second image below is the more natural view with the colours removed using the RGB align feature in RegiStax6, but it’s not the true view as seen through the telescope last night…. You must try and go outside and have a look at this spectacular planet that’s blazing away in all its glory :-)
 
Image was taken with a 10inch Meade GPS Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a ZWO 120 MC-S camera with a 3x Barlow lens attached. An AVI movie was captured with 2500frames, stacked in RegiStax6, and processed in PS CS4.