On the evening of the 10th September the 3 day old waxing crescent Moon came to within 4 degrees of Venus low in the western sky. With this phase of the Moon you can also see that wonderful celestial phenomenon called earthshine displayed on the lunar surface.
 
Earthshine is now well understood as sunlight from Earth’s clouds being reflected back onto the lunar surface producing this beautiful soft glow on the Moons unlit surface.
 
I post a lot of my images onto Dr Tony Phillips website called Spaceweather.com
​Dr Phillips has written an article call ‘What is the Da Vinci Glow?’ It’s a very interesting read, please go to the link below and see how Leonardo Da Vinci over 500 years ago worked out what earthshine really was :-)
https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2018/05/16/what-is-the-da-vinci-glow/
 
I found this really nice YouTube video by Dr John Mason from the Southern Downs Planetarium & Science Centre. Where he takes you outside into the garden to look at the Earthshine on the Moon and view the De Vinci Glow. His view on this night was very similar to what I have captured here with my image.

In this video Dr John Mason talks about the magnificent conjunction of the crescent moon and the brilliant planet Venus.

What a stunning view it was this evening in the western sky at my Stardust Observatory, with the crescent Moon near Mercury and Venus above with the star Spica not far away.

Its not very often you can see or even capture this elusive planet as its orbit is very quite close to the Sun, also you have to have a clear western horizon even to see tiny Mercury low in the sky.

My Image was taken at my Stardust Observatory with a Canon 70D camera and an 18-400mm lens @28mm; exposure time was 4 seconds and ISO400 :-)

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)

~ 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.

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.

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.

It’s winter here in Australia and at this time of year you can see right into the heart of our Milky Way galaxy at the zenith. It’s a magnificent sight to behold when seen from a very dark sky site with no city lights.
 
Along with wanting to capture the whole Milky Way sky from Aquila to the Southern Cross, I’ve always wanted to capture the dark shape of the “Emu in the Sky” that’s in the same area of sky and I’ve drawn onto the image to show the shape.
 
This well known aboriginal story of the Emu was once an important time for the indigenous people of Australia to know when to collect Emu eggs, as they were an essential food source for there people. They used the dark shape of the Emu to guide them during this very important seasonal event…what a wonderful celestial story J
 
Image taken at my Stardust Observatory with a Canon 6D Mk11 camera and a Tokina 10-17mm fisheye lens set at 17mm, the camera was attached to the top of a tracking telescope; because of the very wide sky view you’ll also see the planets Jupiter and Saturn plus the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) in the image.
 
There were 20 images captured with an exposure time of 1½ minute each with corresponding dark frames, using ISO3200. Images stacked in DSS and processed in PS CS4.
 
To find out more about indigenous astronomy and the Emu story please go to the links below:
 
The Kamilaroi and Euahlayi Emu in the Sky
By Robert Fuller
http://aboriginalastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-kamilaroi-and-euahlayi-emu-in-sky.html
 
Exploring the Astronomical Knowledge and traditions of indigenous Australians
By Duane Hamacher
http://aboriginalastronomy.blogspot.com/2011/04/coal-sack-and-emu-in-er-i-mean-llama-in.html
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Download a Skymap for the Southern Hemisphere at Skymaps.com at:
​ http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html