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).
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​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 :-)

~ Australia Post coin sets for the 2019 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing ~
 
The Royal Australian Mint has issued two coin sets in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission for 2019. I’ve taken a couple of pictures so you can see them; I’ve also added a little astronaut just for fun :-)
 
I was very excited to see both sets at the post office and brought both of them for prosperity and remembrance. Please see the information below explaining what’s in the sets, just call into any Australia Post Office or order them on line… but be quick as sometimes they sell out very quickly.
 
2019 is the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 mission, when astronauts Neil Armstrong, ‘Buzz’ Aldrin and Michael Collins flew to the Moon, and Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon’s surface. The Mint commemorates this historic event with this striking set of proof coins.
 
Coin details: Sets include two unique coins: a 5 cent coin representing the Moon with the Apollo 11 landing site, and a $1 coin representing Earth and the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station. The first time that the 5-cent coin has been changed in a year set.
 
Presentation: Packaged in a beautiful presentation folder or presentation cases with a numbered Certificate of Authenticity.
 
Mint: Royal Australian Mint
Finish: Proof
Mintage: Unlimited
Reverse designer: Stuart Devlin, Horst Hahne, Adam Ball
Obverse designer: Ian Rank-Broadley
 
https://shop.auspost.com.au/collectables/coins-and-banknotes/royal-australian-mint/2019-year-sets

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.
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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.

I’m at my Stardust Observatory at Leyburn this weekend taking images of the night sky. I was just about ready to go to bed when I looked out at the dawn sky and saw this magnificent view of the planets all aligned up the eastern horizon at 4.20am with the gorgeous colour of daylight.
 
It was still dark enough to see many stars including the constellation of Scorpius with the stars from the Milky Way just starting to fade, it was very beautiful to see and very tranquil after a whole night up taking pictures of galaxies :-)
 
I took the image with a Canon 70D camera and a Tokina 11-16mm wide lens @12mm on a camera tripod, ISO 800 with a 13-second exposure.
 
(Pictures of the Leo Triplet of galaxies coming soon when they are processed)

I visited the Lego store at Dreamworld here on the Gold Coast and look what I found on special for only $39.00, a Lego set on the ‘Women of NASA’…WooHoo!
 
It’s been many years since I built any Lego so I was really excited to sit down and make this wonderful set up… please see some pictures below :-)

Also, inside the box was a booklet that gave information about the NASA ladies featured, which were Sally Ride, Mae Jemison, Margaret Hamilton and Nancy G Roman, which I found very interesting. Just like the guys us ladies are very smart too and NASA really did lead the way eventually in recognising the female roles in the space program.

If you have not seen the movie ‘Hidden Figures’ about the early years of NASA and the Apollo program then you must…it’s a revelation in what the human mind can accomplish no matter what nationality you are or whether you are a man or a woman.
 
~ We are all one race here on planet Earth and that is the human race ~
 
Footnote: Lego set NASA Apollo Saturn V Rocket
Look what else I have found at the Lego store…. Wow, I can’t wait to make up this incredible model of the Apollo Saturn V Rocket!!!

​Sunspot AR2733 is now degrading after it unleashed a C5 class solar flare on the 26th January, it’s now heading toward the western limb of the Sun. Perhaps we may see a lovely prominence on the solar edge as it rotates out of view…now that would be nice to see if the weather is fine :-)
 
Images taken with a 127mm refractor telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2X Barlow lens attached, 5 images stacked in RegiStak6 and processed in PS CS4. Exposures were 1/250th second and ISO200.

(Right) I used my 127mm refractor with an Orion glass solar filter attached for safe viewing and taking pictures of the solar surface.
 
(DANGER…NEVER look at the Sun without proper solar filters on your camera lenses and telescopes)
 
Please see below a small movie of the explosion from AR2733 taken on the 26th January from
NASA’s SDO observatory.

At last, a lovely clear evening to take some pictures of the Moon, this time I’ve set up my 127mm (5 inch) refractor telescope and HEQ5 Pro mount. I’ve found that this telescope is just exceptional to use for lunar photography.
 
It was a very hot evening at 28 degrees Celsius and lots of biting mosquitoes but I was determined to get some nice pictures of the Moon and I did :-)
 
I was really happy with capturing a few interesting lunar objects with this phase, the first was the extremely bright crater Aristarchus with the long sinuous Vallis Schroteri in Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms), which was just off from the terminator line, and in full relief…it looked quite spectacular!
 
The next object was the prominent low walled crater Gassendi that is on the edge of Mare Humorum (Sea of Moisture) and looks just like a diamond ring. And, at this lunar phase you start to see the long ejecta rays from the crater Tycho that is now fully illuminated.
 
The image of the full disc of the Moon was taken with a Canon 70D camera at prime focus, exposure time was 1/500th second and ISO100. Ten images were captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.
 
The higher magnified images were taken with a ZWO ASI 120MC-s camera with a 3x Barlow lens attached and captured AVI movie files, which were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.

I don’t have a lot of room here at home for taking images of the night sky, this is because all our trees have grown tall and new houses have been built on either side of us. So for objects coming up in the eastern sky, I have to set up very close to the pool edge.

I just know that one night I’m going to accidently fall in… but what can you do but work with what you have,
​and hope for the best :-)
 
The refractor telescope is a 127mm North Group apochromatic, and the lunar images I’m getting out of it are very crisp, the focal length at prime focus is 760.00 mm. For the full disc of the Moon I use a Canon 70D camera, for the high magnification images I love using the little ZWO ASI 120MC-s camera with a 3x Barlow lens attached, which is shown here attached to the telescope.
 
Don’t forget insect repellent, on this summer time evening I was eaten alive by mosquitoes Ouch!!!

​I had another peek at the Sun late yesterday afternoon and Yep…it’s spotless again! 
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When I turned around and looked up to the east I spotted a lovely gibbous Moon in a clear blue sky,
​which looked very pretty :-)
 
Both images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens with a 2x telecoverter making a focal length of 1280mm.

A glass solar filter was attached to the lens for safe viewing and imaging of the Sun.

The surface features of Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule (2014 MU69) are coming into focus in these images taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during its historic flyby on Jan. 1, 2019. These images, released Jan. 2, were taken a day earlier from a distance of 18,000 miles (28,000 kilometers) with a scale of 730 feet (140 meters) per pixels.

Ultima Thule spins like a propeller in space and looks like a bowling pin or peanut…how awesome is that!
 
News Release January 15, 2019
New Movie Shows Ultima Thule from an Approaching New Horizons
NASA Spacecraft Begins Returning New Images, Other Data from Historic New Year's Flyby
Please go to the link below to see the movie and other information on the mission.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20190115
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php
https://twitter.com/NASANewHorizons
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This diagram suggests how the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, nicknamed Ultima Thule, could have formed.