This is what our skies are like here at the moment; the sky is full of dust and smoke from our severe drought out west and all the bushfires.  Our fire fighters are doing an incredible job of saving homes and many people are out helping our beautiful wildlife, which are also suffering in this 40C degree heat.
 
At last, thank goodness rain is forecast in the next couple of days, in the mean time it does make for some incredibly fiery sunset displays, even the water looks like it’s on fire!
 
Images were taken from Jabiru Island Park at Paradise Point with a Canon G7 X Mark 11 camera on manual focus; exposure was 1250th second and ISO125.

The new crescent Moon looked ever so pretty this evening with the planets Jupiter, Venus and Saturn all on display in the western sky after sunset.
I was again nearly eaten alive by the mosquitoes taking the photos…but it was worth it :-)
 
My image was taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens on a tripod; the exposure time was 3.2 seconds at F16 and ISO800.

I just managed to capture Venus and Jupiter at there closest approach (only 1.4 degrees apart) before a large dark cloud (that looked a bit like a Dragon) completely covered the planets, at least I got a picture of them :-)
 
Venus has now passed Jupiter on the ecliptic and will continue to get higher each night until the new crescent Moon joins them in a couple of days time, so the shows not over yet…
 
My image was taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens on a tripod; the exposure time was 0.4 seconds and ISO1250 and YES, the mosquitoes nearly ate me alive again!

There is a spectacular celestial display happening in the western sky after sunset for anybody who takes the time to go outside and have a look…
 
A meeting of two of the brightest planets in our solar system is taking place and they are getting closer and closer every day…so please hop off your comfortable lounge and pop outside to take a look at the wonderful display :-)
 
If you have a look at the close up photo of the planets you can just make a couple of the moons of Jupiter beside the planet, which was lovely to capture.
 
Images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400 mm lens on a tripod; the lens was set at 163mm for the wide field with a 0.4 second exposure and ISO1600.
​For the close up image of the planets the lens was set at 44mm and exposure was 0.6 seconds, ISO1600. 

What a wonderful surprise I got today when I saw that my images of the planets Venus & Jupiter taken from a plane at 30,000 ft were showcased on the front page of Spaceweather.com 
https://www.spaceweather.com
https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=157631
 
This is such an awesome website that is penned daily by Dr Tony Phillips, where current up to date information is given on the Sun-Earth environment with daily information about the Sun.  At least once or twice a day I check what’s happening in our sky and just love looking at all the images posted.
 
The added beauty of the website, is that people from all over the world can share there images of what’s happening in the daytime and night-time sky…it’s an incredible way to bring us all together on planet Earth by observing the natural wonders of the universe that we live in…

On the evening of the 16th November we boarded a plane for a flight from Christchurch in New Zealand to the Gold Coast in Australia.
 
What a wonderful surprise I got when I looked out my plane window and saw the beautiful colours of sunset in the evening sky with the brilliant planets Venus and Jupiter in the western sky with the constellation of Scorpius…it looked absolutely stunning!
 
When I wiggled around in my seat I also spied the constellation of the Southern Cross (Crux) with the pointers that was upside down in the south western sky, the colour gradient from a light blue sky to the inky black sky above the plane was quite breathtaking…
 
The images were taken with a Canon G7X Mark11 camera on manual focus and ISO 1600. To capture the images I had to put a jacket over my head to block out all the lights from the interior of the plane…I got many strange looks from the other passengers, but I just smiled and kept taking the pictures :-)

The bright stars Alpha and Beta Centauri, which are the pointers to the Cross, are also on display to the right.
What a glorious sight it was from my aeroplane window :-)

The beautiful Pleiades open star cluster (M45) is now at prime viewing in the evening sky in the constellation of Taurus. The nebulosity still surrounding these very hot blue young stars is just stunning!
 
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 Pleiades get there name from Greek legend and are known as the ‘Seven Sisters’ stories of them are also found in many other cultures including the indigenous peoples here in Australia.
https://japingkaaboriginalart.com/articles/star-dreaming-seven-sisters/
 
Have a look up in the sky and see if you can spot seven or more stars in the cluster with just your eyes, make sure it's a clear dark night and I’m sure you will see them all :-)
 
To find out more about this amazing star cluster please go to a couple of these website below:
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades
https://www.naic.edu/~gibson/pleiades/​

​The images were taken at my stardust observatory at Leyburn in QLD Australia with a Meade 80mm ED Triplet refractor telescope and a Canon 70D camera. There were 25x3 minute subs and 15x3 minute darks captured which were stacked in DSS and processed in PS CS4.

Free to download, new posters from NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program feature horrifyingly inhospitable planets located outside our solar system. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-worlds/galaxy-of-horrors/

Just in time for Halloween, NASA has released two new posters celebrating some truly terrifying exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system. Free to download, the entertaining posters recall vintage horror movie advertisements but have a decidedly astronomical focus.

​Dubbed Galaxy of Horrors, the fun but informative series resulted from a collaboration of scientists and artists and was produced by NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program Office, located at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The same program is behind the popular Exoplanet Travel Bureau poster series, which imagines humans visiting some of the thousands of known worlds outside our solar system.

~ SAS (InOMN) 5th October 2019 ~
We had a beautiful clear sky all day and then those pesky clouds decided to come from nowhere and nearly spoilt our evening to look at the Moon!
 
A lot of members from SAS (Southern Astronomical Society) turned up to help on the night and a lot of excited people managed to get a peek of the Moon and Saturn through our large telescopes when some clear patches of night sky came through, but we had to be quick…
 
The Tamborine Lions Club did an outstanding job, as always, with the sausage sizzle and we were all given a yummy sausage sizzle treat too :-)
 
Please see below a slideshow of some images that I took on the evening that were included in the InOMN article reported by Bryan Pott and myself in our clubs newsletter and displayed by our editor Julie Lancaster for the October edition.

If you would like to read the whole ‘Event Horizon’ e-newsletter please go to:
https://sas.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Oct-EH-SAS.pdf
 
If you attended the SAS InOMN on the 5th October at Tamborine then please download you certificate (at the link below) and add your name to celebrate your participation in International Observe the Moon Night 2019 :-)
https://moon.nasa.gov/resources/387/2019-international-observe-the-moon-night-certificate/

Main InOMN website at:
 https://moon.nasa.gov/observe-the-moon/annual-event/overview/

You must see this beautiful video of our amazing Moon in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, what an incredible celestial object it is in the night sky…you only have to go outside look up and there it is! Enjoy :-)

Credit: NASA
Introduction by David A. Kring
 
“From the Earth to the Moon” is a brief, but vivid video and audio recording that
Provides an inspirational view of the lunar surface, which humans have not visited since 1972, despite being the best and most accessible place in the solar system to explore the fundamental principles of our origins;
Highlights vast portions of the lunar surface that have yet to be explored; and
Demonstrates how new images are revealing dramatic details of future landing sites suitable for both robotic and human missions. 
The scenes in the video are so dramatic that you may find yourself reaching out to pick up a rock and becoming restless to walk among the lunar peaks.  We encourage you to download the HD version of the video (see link below) to fully marvel at this tour of the lunar surface.
https://moon.nasa.gov/resources/330/from-the-earth-to-the-moon/

Additional details about the scenes in “From the Earth to the Moon”
 
The video provides views of (i) the lunar nearside, (ii) a flyover of the heavily cratered lunar highlands, (iii) Oceanus Procellarum, (iv) a zoomed-in perspective of Aristarchus crater, (v) a flight down Vallis Schröteri, (vi) an oblique perspective of Aristarchus crater, (vii) crater walls within Aristarchus, (viii) a pull away perspective of Aristarchus crater, (ix) a zoomed-in rotating view of Tycho crater, (x) flybys of five central peak features within Tycho crater, (xi) a pull away perspective of Tycho crater with distinct panels of images to illustrate a variety of spatial resolutions and albedo, (xii) a rotating view of Tycho crater from a position slightly above its rim, (xiii) a pull away perspective of Tycho crater, (xiv) rotating perspective of Orientale basin, (xv) rotating and pull away perspective from Orientale basin, (xvi) dawn rising over Tsiolkovsky crater, and (xvii) Earth rising over the lunar surface.
 
The Lunar and Planetary Institute’s (LPI’s) mission is to advance understanding of the solar system by providing exceptional science, service, and inspiration to the world.
 
LPI is operated by USRA under a cooperative agreement with the Science Mission Directorate of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/exploration/moonVideo/
https://www.lpi.usra.edu
​