The sky was just stunning this evening with brilliant Venus now above the Pleiades star cluster (M45) low on the western horizon, this now concludes the conjunction and it will not happen again for another eight years in 2028!
 
My image was taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Canon 100-400mm lens on a camera tripod; the exposure time was 1 seconds and ISO2500. Nine images were stacked in Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) and processed in PS CS4.

Brilliant Venus glided in front of the stars in the Pleiades star cluster this evening and it looked absolutely beautiful, this is quite a rare event and only happens every 8 years. We had some high level cloud but it held out long enough for me to capture some images :-)
 
My mage was taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Canon 100-400mm lens @300mm; the exposure time was 25 seconds and ISO 250. The full sky image was taken with a Canon GX7 Mark 11 camera outside on my front lawn where I could see the whole western sky under a bright street light!

~ Venus & Pleiades Star Cluster (M45) ~
 
Venus is now closing in on the Pleiades star cluster, I’ve also taken a wider view image with the Hyades star cluster above, both these star clusters are in the constellation of Taurus (The Bull).
Because both Venus and the Pleiades are very low in the western sky at sunset the sky’s very light, so I’m not able to capture any nebulosity around any of these pretty young stars in the Pleiades.
 
I’ve also included an image of the beautiful Pleiades that I took at my Stardust Observatory last September with one of my telescopes in a very dark sky, as you can see this star cluster is one of the most beautiful objects in the night sky :-)
 
The Pleiades star cluster is a group of hundreds of stars that were born from the same stellar nebula about 100 million years ago and is over 400 light years away from us.
 
The wide field images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens on a tripod just outside my house with lots of street lights. 

The dark sky image below was taken with a Meade 80mm ED Triplet refractor telescope
and a Canon 70D camera at my Stardust Observatory.
​
There were 25x3 minute subs and 15x3 minute darks captured which were stacked in DSS
and ​processed in PS CS4.

For more information about the Pleiades please go to my blog below:
 http://www.mystardustobservatory.com/astro-blog/-the-beautiful-pleiades-open-star-cluster-m45-in-taurus

~ Venus joins the Pleiades Star Cluster ~
 
Venus is now getting closer to the pretty open star cluster the Pleiades; just above the Pleiades (M45) is the other very open star cluster in the constellation of Taurus (The Bull) called the Hyades cluster.

​The bright orange red star is called Aldebaran and is known as the eye of the bull, it’s unrelated to the Hyades star cluster and much closer to us than the other stars in the group, it’s over 150 times brighter than our Sun!
 
The sky is very light here in Australia at 6.30pm and I’m only just able to take these pictures with Venus now in the twilight zone…

My images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens, first & second image taken with lens set at 22mm, 5-second exposure and ISO400. Third image taken with lens set at 70mm and cropped, 4-second exposure and ISO400.

The four-day-old crescent Moon looked absolutely stunning with Venus in this wide view image of the western sky yesterday afternoon. The sky was still quite light when I took the photo and as the sky got a little darker Venus just looked more brilliant on the ecliptic not far away from the Moon.
 
I also zoomed in a took an image with the same lens at 400mm to get a closer view of the Moon, I usually only do this with a telescope but at the moment I can only take these images outside on my front lawn, so you just use what you have….
 
I hope everyone keeps safe and well while we go through this trying time in our world, keep looking up at the sky while in social isolation and try and stay happy…
 
My image was taken with a Canon 70D camera with a Canon 100-400mm lens set at 100mm, the ISO was 400 and exposure time was 2 seconds at F5.6. The close-up image was also taken with the same lens at 400mm; I stacked nine images in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4. The mosquitoes were very bitie, Ouch!

Venus is now looking very bright in the western sky but it also positioned lower so its making it quite difficult to take these high magnitude images through atmospheric disturbances.
 
I took the image with a Meade 10 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope
ZWO 120 MC-S camera with 3x Barlow lens attached and added a bit of magic with Photoshop to show a sun flare J
 
As Venus starts to get larger in size it also shows a smaller phase this is because we are seeing the planet come toward us in its orbit around the Sun. When it’s at a crescent phase it will be at its brightest because its getting closer the Sun it will also look its largest to us here on Earth through our telescopes because it will be close to us in its orbit.
 
To learn more about the amazing planet Venus please go to the NASA link below:
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/venus/overview/
 
NASA Science for kids Space Place - All About Venus
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/all-about-venus/en/
 
Galileo's Observations of the Moon, Jupiter, Venus and the Sun
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/307/galileos-observations-of-the-moon-jupiter-venus-and-the-sun/
​

Galileo's Phases of Venus and Other Planets
Source: Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale
 
Galileo Galilei's observations that Venus appeared in phases -- similar to those of Earth's Moon -- in our sky was evidence that Venus orbited the sun and contributed to the downfall of the centuries-old belief that the sun and planets revolved around Earth. Also sketched here are Jupiter, Saturn and Mars.
 

This is the first time I’ve had a clear night to view the star Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion and it is the evening of the 29th February 2020 (Leap Day).  After taking images of the Moon and Venus (which I posted on my blog earlier today) I waited until Orion was getting low in the western sky to take some images to see how bright the star Betelgeuse was and in this very dark sky it was radiating brightly. Whatever has been happening with Betelgeuse seems to be sorting itself out…
I only have very basic equipment with me as we are camping and I didn’t expect
to be taking any images because of the many people with fires and lights in the camp ground, but we have found a lovely little corner where it’s very dark and I could not be happier out here with all the mosquitoes taking images of the night sky :-)
​
The image was taken at Flanagan’s Reserve near Rathdowney in QLD with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens set at 24mm, the exposure time was just 10 seconds and ISO 2000, 10 images were stacked in DSS (Deep Sky Stacker) and processed in PS CS4.

 Moon & Venus (Leap Day)
My image were taken at Flanagan’s Reserve near Rathdowney and captures the beautiful scene that was happening in the western sky last night just after sunset on this very special leap day for the 29th February 2020, as this event only happens every 4 years, I really wanted to capture something special for the day :-)

The whole western sky had this beautiful purple coloured hue and I’m so happy it showed up in my photographs, we are away camping at the moment and the skies here are so clear for the first time in months.  Earlier I took a an image of the crescent Moon in a bright blue sky while waiting for Venus to show itself…it looked ever so pretty.

My images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens, the wide field image exposure time was 1.3 seconds and ISO250 at F3.5. The crescent Moon image was taken with the same lens with a 2x converter attached making 1280mm focal length; the exposure was 1/250th second and ISO400. Ten lunar images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.
 

~ Our Sun on 20_02_2020 ~
 
I just had to take a photo of our Sun today for this special numerical date of the 20th of February 2020, because it’s such an awesome date to remember the year when solar minimum occurred…. and Yes, the Sun’s still ever so quite and spotless today :-)
 
Image taken with a Canon 70D camera and an 18-400mm Tamron lens with a 2x converter (focal length 1280mm) with a glass solar filter attached to the lens for safe solar imaging. The exposure time was 1/400th second and ISO 320, 10 images stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.

To read more about our quite Sun and solar minimum please go to this excellent article written by Dr Tony Phillips from Spaceweather.com
https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2019/12/17/sunspots-set-a-space-age-record/
 
If your are interested in keeping an eye on what the Suns doing daily, then please go to NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory website at:
https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Goddard Space Flight Centre has just released two YouTube videos to celebrate
​SDO’s 10th Anniversary of watching the Sun.
Please see below the short video...'SDO Celebrates a Decade of Watching Sun'

Below is the longer and informative video called
‘Highlights From SDO’s 10 years of Solar Observation’
 
In February 2020, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory — SDO — is celebrating its 10th year in space. Over the past decade the spacecraft has kept a constant eye on the Sun, studying how the Sun creates solar activity and drives space weather — the dynamic conditions in space that impact the entire solar system, including Earth.
 
Since its launch on Feb. 11, 2010, SDO has collected millions of scientific images of our nearest star, giving scientists new insights into its workings. SDO’s measurements of the Sun — from the interior to the atmosphere, magnetic field, and energy output — have greatly contributed to our understanding of our closest star. SDO’s images have also become iconic — if you’ve ever seen a close-up of activity on the Sun, it was likely from an SDO image.

We’ve had a lot of rain over the last two months, but it’s been clear enough to take some lovely pictures of our beautiful Moon.
 
At this phase the eleven and a half day old Moon shows many of the dark lunar seas (Maria) on its surface. There are also some very prominent craters on display with the large craters called Tycho, Copernicus and Plato in view.
(I’ve marked some of the more interesting places on the surface in the second image)
 
The next eleven-day-old Moon will be on the 7th March 2020, you may like to revisit the Moon again and look at some of these wonderful features on the lunar surface with your binoculars or telescope.
 
If you live in the Northern hemisphere you may have noticed something different about my image, Yes, it’s upside down… that’s the way we view the Moon here in the Southern hemisphere ‘In the land down under’ J
 
My images were taken with a Meade 10inch LX200 Schmidt-Cassergrain telescope with a 6.3 focal reducer attached to capture the full disc of the Moon. I used a Canon 700D DSLR camera to capture the images, exposure time was 1/200th second and ISO100. Twelve images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.