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~ Beautiful Full Moon ~

11/25/2015

Our beautiful Full Moon on the 25th November 2015 showing lunar libration in northern latitude (look to the lower left of the image to see how far the dark crater Plato is away from the lunar edge) we can see up to 59% of the lunar surface because of this phenomenon.

~ Our beautiful full Moon ~

Full Moon is the best time to see and photograph all the ejected material from craters Stevinus A, Tycho, Copernicus, Kepler and the extremely bright crater Aristarchus. Images taken with a 127mm refractor telescope and a Canon 700D camera at prime focus, 15 images were stacked in Registax6 and processed in Photoshop CS4.

~ A closer look at the Full Moon ~
A higher magnification image of the Full Moon on the 25th November 2015 which was taken with my 127mm refractor and a Canon 700D camera, I also added a 2x Barlow lens in the system to capture a closer view of the lunar surface. 12 images were stacked in Registax6 and processed in Photoshop CS4.

~ Lightning storm at Lake Moogerah ~

11/23/2015

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On the last night of our trip on Monday the 23rd November severe thunderstorms were with us again and we were back at Moogerah Dam, this time we tucked the caravan safely under a tree and then the show began…it was just awesome! I set up my camera on the tripod and just set the exposure time to 2 seconds on and 2 seconds off for a dark frame to run continuously…this way I was able to capture some wonderful images, the lightning was just amazing!!!

~ Spectacular lightning display at Lake Moogerah ~

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~ Rare Mammatus Clouds ~

11/22/2015

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On Sunday afternoon on the 22nd November 2015 a severe thunderstorm warning was issued while visiting my family in Stanthorpe…I love thunderstorms!!! How exciting it was when my son and I went outside to and saw all these amazing mammatus clouds all over the sky. Now these formation of clouds can be truly scary, as they usually mean very severe weather…so we quickly took some images and marvel at their unique shapes then raced back inside before the storm hit.

~ Mammatus Clouds ~
How do they form and why do they have a strange shape?

First of all there name comes from the Latin word for ‘breast or udder’ but to me they look like bubbles all over the sky…they are in fact upside down clouds and form on the bottom of massive cumulonimbus clouds.
The theory is, that they usually form where very warm and very cool air both meet, different atmospheric conditions produce different mammatus clouds, they can look smooth, jagged, translucent or opaque depending upon the conditions…but no matter what, they look very impressive in the sky, take your pictures and enjoy them, then quickly take cover as they are very unpredictable and you most probably will get wet!!!

Wikipedia has more information on these rare cloud formations at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammatus_cloud

Please go to the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) website where you can find out a lots of information about the different types of clouds in the sky at:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/clouds/cloudchart.htm

~ Cloud chart from the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) website ~

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~ Venus, Mars and Jupiter in the dawn sky ~

11/20/2015

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Friday 20th November 2015
On this morning I knew that the planets Venus, Mars and Jupiter were all aligned along the ecliptic before dawn, so I got up at 3am and took some lovely images with the foreground of the lake and the colours of dawn…it was very beautiful.

My images were taken with a Canon 7D and a 17-85mm lens set at 17mm on a tripod, exposure was just 10 seconds and ISO 1000…no fancy tracking equipment. I always use what I have to capture an event, if you don’t do that then you’ll never capture any of the amazing things that you’ll see in the sky. Just go for it!!

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~ Watching the evening Sky ~

11/19/2015

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Thursday 19th November 2015
I’m always on alert for things that are happening in the sky be it in the daytime or nightime; you just never know when something is going to happen, that’s why it’s so exciting! We went off for a few days away in our caravan and spent the first night at Lake Moogerah, which is only about a 2-hour drive west of the Gold Coast. This is a beautiful place that has very dark skies and if there are not too many campers about you can get some really great images of the night sky. On the first evening away just after sunset the lovely constellations of Taurus, Orion and Canis Major were all rising in the eastern sky by the lake…it was very pretty.

~ Constellations of Taurus, Orion and Canis Major were all rising in the eastern sky by the lake ~

To capture the wide field image, I used a still camera tripod and Canon 7D camera that had a 10-17mm Tokina fish-eye lens attached set at 10mm to capture the full view of the eastern sky. The exposure time was just 20 seconds,
ISO 1600 and lens set @ f3.5.

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~ Unusual Circular Filament & Solar Flare ~

11/14/2015

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On the 13th November 2015 there was this unusual circular shaped filament on the surface of the Sun that’s nearly the same size as the Moons orbit around the Earth! While taking the images an area began to flare just to the east of this huge filament, which was very exciting. The flaring began at about 11.25am (AEST) and was still very active by midday when clouds came and covered the whole sky…and that was the end of that, no more pictures!

The H-alpha images were taken with the clubs Lunt 80mm solar telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens attached, there where 25 images stacked in RegiStack6 and processed in PS CS4. The monochrome image is with the same camera using the monochrome setting.

~ Huge Circular Filament on the Sun ~

~ Monochrome image of flare and filament ~

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~ Beautiful Full Moon ~

~ Lightning storm at Lake Moogerah ~

~ Rare Mammatus Clouds ~

~ Venus, Mars and Jupiter in the dawn sky ~

~ Watching the evening Sky ~

~ Unusual Circular Filament & Solar Flare ~

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