The Sun has these incredibly active sunspot groups on its surface numbered AR2866 & AR2868 with another sunspot developing not far away numbered AR2869.
The two smaller sunspots nearing the western limb are AR2863 & AR2865.
 
I’m at my Stardust Observatory this weekend and just had to take some images of these wonderful active regions on the solar surface  :-)

My image was taken with a Canon 70D camera & Canon 100-400mm lens with 2x teleconverter = 1280mm focal length with solar filter attached…. The exposure was 1/500th second and ISO100, 20 images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PSCS4.

Movie taken with my Canon 70D and Canon 100-400mm lens plus 2x teleconverter = Focal length 1280mm

I was out at my Stardust Observatory and even though it was a lovely clear sky all around me, when I went to take a photo of the setting Sun, there was this huge smoky band on the western horizon from a large bushfire. Within minutes the Sun was setting into the thick fiery atmosphere and being pulled into an egg shape!
 
I had to quickly take the solar filter off the lens to capture the Sun as it was disappearing into the thick smog; it went this amazing bright pink colour before it completely disappeared…it was very exciting. You can also just make out those two large sunspot groups AR2866 & AR2868 on the surface.

My images were taken on my last new moon weekend, with a Canon 70D camera & Canon 100-400mm lens with 2x teleconverter = 1280mm focal length with solar filter taken off the lens, the thick smoke acted as filter.
(This is the real hot pink colour of the Sun with no processing)

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.

Wow…just like that, there’s a sprinkling of active sunspots on the Sun today!

The Sun looked very spotty with many active sunspots across its surface and some small prominences around the limb, The Active Regions are 2863, 2864, 2866 and 2868. The Sun is really starting to get quite active now with sunspots sprouting up nearly every day now.
 
The white light image was taken with a Canon 70D camera & Canon 100-400mm lens with 2x teleconverter = 1280mm focal length with solar filter attached…. The exposure was 1/500th second and ISO200, 20 images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PSCS4.
 
The H Alpha Image was taken with a Lunt 60mm H-alpha telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 3x Barlow lens. Two sets of images were taken, one for the disc and another for the faint prominences and combined in PS.
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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)

We are away at the moment on the Sunshine Coast in QLD and the weather today was just perfect!

When I looked up into the afternoon sky I saw this bright gibbous Moon embedded into a beautiful clear blue sky…. a few hours later at 10pm, I went back outside and took some more images in the dark night time sky :-)

The orientation of the Moon is how it’s seen here in the Southern Hemisphere… I used a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens with a 2x tele converter making a focal length of 1280mm that was attached to a camera tripod, both images are cropped.
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The exposure time for the daytime image was 1/50th second and ISO 100, the night time image exposure was 1/80th second and ISO 100, 10 images each were captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.
Have fun looking for a daytime Moon :-)

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.