On a recent daytime visit to the Narrabri observatory in NSW I watched for quite some time as the array of radio telescopes repositioned themselves around the sky.
 
All of a sudden all five radio telescope slewed over to the north western sky. It was then that I saw that No5 radio telescope was pointed not far away from our own star the Sun and I got an idea for an image to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. If I could take an image to convey that connection between us here on Earth and another celestial body that would be very exciting.
 
I thought to myself, this is exactly what happened when the radio telescopes at the Honeysuckle Creek and the Parkes Radio Telescope tracking stations pointed there antennae at the daytime Moon and received the monumental television signals of Neil Armstrong taking his first footsteps on the
lunar surface on the afternoon of the 21st July 1969 (AEST).
 
How proud we all are that Australia played such a pivotal role in one of mankind’s greatest achievements, this is what I see in my image to remember how an incredible instrument made by humans can benefit mankind in a wondrous way.
 
Footnote: ~ David Malin Awards 2019 ~
​
There were so many awesome images submitted in this year’s David Malin Astrophotography Competition, but I did get a ‘Highly Commended’ for my image above in the themed ‘Memories of Apollo’ section :-)
https://www.facebook.com/CWASDMA/

The colours in this sunset were just magnificent, it’s not very often you get to see such vibrate and vivid colours like this in the sky, and it was just stunning!
 
I quickly ran a grabbed my little Canon G15 point and shot camera and took some images, there’s no processing here, this is the real colour of the afternoon sky…just magnificent :-)
Exposure settings were aperture f2.8, ISO320 and time was 5.02pm.
 
What courses all these stunning colours?
 
At sunset the Suns light has a lot more of the Earths thick atmosphere to pass through as it sets low on the western horizon and depending on how much dust particles or other aerosols are in the sky this determines how colourful the sunset will become.
 
On the electromagnetic spectrum red has the longest wavelength of any visible light, this is why sunsets are often a beautiful golden yellow or red colour on the horizon, the extremely long path of sunlight as it travels or scatters through the atmosphere blocks all the other colours.
 
Below you will find a few websites that explain the science behind a beautiful sunset…but really they are just so beautiful so just enjoy them :-)
 
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/SID/activities/GreenSun.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/blue-sky/en/
 
http://media.bom.gov.au/social/blog/1767/red-sky-at-night-the-science-of-beautiful-sunsets/

Today marks the winter Solstice here in the Southern Hemisphere, so while most of you who live in the Northern Hemisphere are experiencing the longest day of the year, we here in the land down under are experiencing the shortest day of our year…. isn’t living on our Earth just amazing!
 
The Sun is indeed very quite and absolutely blank so no fireworks to celebrate this special event from the Sun :-)
 
Image taken with a Canon 70D camera and Tamron 18-400mm lens and 2x teleconverter making a focal length of 1280mm. I used a glass solar filter attached to the lens to safely image the sun. Eight images were stacked in RegiStax6, exposure time was 1/500th second and ISO200.

~ Wow…Stardust Kids loved learning all about Black Holes at the Stardust Junior Astronomy Club  ~
 
I don’t know what it is about black holes but children always love to learn all about Black Holes, they are mysterious and dangerous so I think that’s why they are so appealing. Mind you, after our exciting space session they know not to go too close to one them in their space rockets or they won’t be coming home for dinner!
 
All the children had a lot of fun and they did lots of wonderful drawings, please see some of them below :-)
 
Please find below some excellent NASA links to children’s teaching resources:
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov
https://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/StarChild.html

~ Black Hole Image Makes History ~
NASA News: APRIL 10, 2019
 
Scientists have obtained the first image of a black hole, using Event Horizon Telescope observations of the center of the galaxy M87. The image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun.
 
To read all about this outstanding achievement please go to:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7372

We had such a beautiful clear day here today, so I raced home and spent most of the day imaging our Sun with my different cameras and telescopes to capture these two big sunspots.
 
Active region AR2740 has now split up which can be seen quite clearly and the new sunspot AR2741 has a very dark umbra and a large penumbra area surrounding it.
It looks like this one is going to be quite an active sunspot too!
 
These images were taken with my 127mm refractor telescope with a glass solar filter attached using a Canon 700D camera. The first image was taken with a ZWO ASI 120MC-S camera with a 2x Barlow lens.

After so long with no activity on the surface of the Sun we now have a huge active sunspot designated AR2740 which is the twice the size of Earth.  I set up both my telescopes this afternoon and finally the clouds cleared long enough to take some images. I had to be quick because clouds were rolling across the sky!
 
For the full disc of the Sun I used a Meade 80mm refractor telescope with a solar filter attached and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens, the exposure time was 1/320th second and ISO 200. For the high magnification image I used a ZWO ASI 120MC-S camera with a 2x Barlow lens, 2000 frame AVI file stacked in RegiStax6.

Information from Spaceweather.com on the 6th May 2019
 
ACTIVE SUNSPOT: Big sunspot AR2740 is turning toward Earth and crackling with solar flares. The most intense so far registered M1 on the Richter Scale of Solar Flares.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash on May 6th.
http://www.spaceweather.com
https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov
https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov

Omega Centauri is a stunning globular star cluster made up of millions of stars, it’s approximately 16,000 light-years away from us and an amazing 150 light-years in diameter, it’s the largest globular cluster in our Milky Way galaxy and it’s on show now for you to enjoy high up in the southern sky.
​It’s one of my favourites objects to observe at this time of the year :-)
 
This image was taken at my Stardust Observatory at Leyburn in April 2019 with a Meade 80mm refractor telescope and a Canon 70D camera. 15 images with exposures of 90 second and ISO 800, plus 5 dark frames were stacked in DSS, and processed in PS CS4. 

Here in the southern hemisphere we know that winter is on its way when we see the Southern Cross (Crux) and other celestial wonders riding high up in the southern sky at midnight.
 
I have an observatory at a place in western Queensland where we have extremely dark skies and I'm able to capture the beauty of our night sky with just a camera and wide field lens on top of a tracking telescope.
 
This image shows the pointers to the cross known as Alpha and Beta Centauri, then the Southern Cross (Crux) in its entirety and then the pretty pink nebulous stellar area around the star called Eta Carinae known as the Eta Carina Nebula.
 
This star is in the end throes of its stellar life and it’s pumping out astronomical amounts of gas (excuse the pun J) as it fights its gravitational battle, many astronomers worldwide are keeping a close eye on this star as its one that will eventually go Supernova!
 
At the bottom of the image is an unusual dark streak known as the Doodad nebula, I was very happy to have captured this funny named object too :-)
 
This image was taken at my Stardust Observatory on the 10th March 2019 with a Canon 70D camera and a 18-400mm Tamron lens set at 23mm and F4.5 (the image is slightly cropped).
​
​There were 12 x 3 minutes images stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and ISO1600. The camera was being tracked on top of a larger telescope set up in the observatory.

I used my Meade LX200 10inch to track the camera piggybacked on top of the telescope which was at a very difficult angle (upside down) so it was a bit of back breaking work to focus the camera.
But it was worth it as I got the pictures :-)

The sky was perfectly clear last month at Leyburn at my Stardust Observatory to capture these pretty galaxies in the constellation of Leo.
 
This group of large spiral galaxies are about 35 million light-years away and are well seen even in quite a small telescope. You can find them by running a line of sight between the stars Regulus to Denebola, and closer to Denebola the galaxies are located between the stars Cherton, Theta Leonis and Iota Leonis.
 
If you would like to find out more about these galaxies in Leo please go to this excellent website
​ for Messier objects at:
https://www.messier-objects.com/leo-triplet/

The images were taken with a Meade 80mm refractor telescope and a Canon 70D camera, which was tracking on top of a Meade 10inch LX 200 telescope, 15x4 minute subs and 5x4 minute darks were captured
and stacked in DSS and processed in PS CS4 :-)

We are away at the moment at the beautiful coastal town of Lennox Heads in NSW and staying close to the beach, which faces east. So I was very excited not to miss out on viewing the SuperMoon rise up from the ocean at sunset.
​
On my way to the beach I looked behind and saw this beautiful sunset. While taking the pictures there was a rustle in the bushes close by and there also enjoying the sunset was a lovely water dragon lizard bathed in the golden sunset glow lounging on a rock… so I got a photo of him too :-)

There were lots of people on the beach waiting for the Super Moon to rise and when it did it looked so pretty above the waves, as it rose higher it left a lovely pathway of moon light on the wet sand.

Images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and an 18-400mm lens, which was hand, held. Sunset image, lens set at 400mm, ISO320 and exposure 1/500th second. The vertical Moon image, lens @ 89mm, ISO1600 and 1/125th second, horizontal Moon image lens @ 56mm, ISO6400 and exposure 1/40th second.