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 ~
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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/

I have now set up my Meade LX200 10inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope here at home in preparation for a few weeks of imaging the planets Jupiter and Saturn. Saturn was at opposition on the 2nd July, which meant the planet was closest to Earth. This is the best time to get some really great images of the ringed planet, that is,
if the weather's kind to me!

It just so happens that I have a small part of sky between the house next door and our house which happens to be the elliptic path in the sky where the planets are seen…how lucky is that :-)
 
Jupiter is now quite high up in the sky in the constellation of Scorpius and by the time Saturn is high enough to image it's looking just stunning, I've named some of the features as seen on the planet. Processing the AVI movie files brings out much more detail than the eye can see and for that I use the free software called RegiStax6.
https://www.astronomie.be/registax/

I’ve set up the telescope in azimuth mode instead of using the equatorial wedge because the exposure times are very short, as long you do the star alignment to track that's all that is needed to capture the planets.
 
Image captured on the 10th July 2019 with a Meade LX200 10inch telescope at prime focus using a ZWO ASI120MC-S camera with a 3x Barlow lens attached. An AVI movie file of 2000 frames were captured which were then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.
 
Below you will see my capture setup of the telescope, computer and ZWO camera.

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/

It was a lovely clear evening here last night to take some more images of the beautiful planets Jupiter and Saturn through my telescope.
 
This time the Great Red Spot was not on display but it was nice to see the other side of the planet with all the bluish swirls and dark coloured gases in the North Equatorial Belt. There were even some small white ovals on display in the southern zone area.
 
Saturn looked just stunning with its dark Cassini division on display and some cloud markings on the body of the planet.
 
Both Jupiter and Saturn are to scale in size as I used the same imaging setup for both of the planets ☺
 
My image was taken with a Meade LX200 (GPS) 10inch telescope at prime focus using a ZWO ASI120MC-S camera with a 3x Barlow lens attached. AVI movie files were captured with 2000 frames that were then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.

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.

I had a rare perfect evening here last night to take lots of images of Jupiter as the planet rotated with the Great Red Spot on show, at 9.20pm (AEST) one of its moons called Europa headed toward the planet for a shadow transit.
 
Yet again the coloured gases around the Great Red Spot have changed and are now showing lovely shaped ripples to one side and a strange flipping up in the air of dark material on the other side. 
 
There also seems to be a type of swirling vortex in the centre of the storm, which is showing up quite clearly…its all very exciting watching all these changes day by day on Jupiter :-)
 
My image was taken on the 11th June 2019 just a day after opposition with a Meade LX200 10inch telescope at prime focus using a ZWO ASI120MC-S camera with a 3x Barlow lens attached. An AVI movie file of 2000 frames were captured which were then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.

It was a bit windy and the sky was still not the best for taking pictures, but I managed to capture a couple of images of the shadow of Europa as it transited across the body of Jupiter.
 
I did not know this at the time, but when I posted my image on spaceweather.com one of the contributors left a message to say that my image could be seen in 3D if I crossed my eyes…. and low and behold I did it and it was awesome!
 
It’s a bit tricky to do, I hope you can see it :-)
 
My image was taken with a Meade LX200 10inch telescope at prime focus using a ZWO ASI120MC-S camera with a 3x Barlow lens attached. AVI movie files of 2000 frames were captured which were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.

In the early hours of the morning on the 30th May 2019, I got a chance to take a series of images (avi movies) of the Great Red Spot over a one and a half time period as the planet Jupiter rotated and made up these two montages.
 
One has five images showing clear images of the GRS as it clears the limb of the planet and the other one is just the three images showing the Great Red Spot on either side of the meridian crossing.
 
I did processed each image a bit more in RegiStax6 to bring out further detail of the rich coloured gases that are swirling around and surrounding the GRS. It seems that each night I view the planet more changes are taking place…it’s very fascinating!
 
I tried to make a Gif movie of these images but unfortunately I’ve not been successful as yet…but I’m trying :-)
 
My images were taken with a Meade LX200 10inch telescope at prime focus using a ZWO ASI120MC-S camera with a 3x Barlow lens attached. AVI movie files of at least 2000 frames were captured for each of the image and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.
 

Jupiter is now looking stunning in our evening sky with its multi coloured bands of swirling clouds that surround the planet. The patterns change every year with each opposition, but this year something more unusual is happening.
 
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot appears to be unravelling and dark coloured gases are jet streaming away from this massive cyclonic storm. I think it’s just so awesome that we can see this happening right now!
 
I’ve also captured a long dark blue filament or festoon breaking away from the dark North Equatorial Belt and there are lots of smaller ones running along the edge of the belt which is quite remarkable…Jupiter is just so exciting to observe at the moment :-)
 
My image was taken on the 30th May 2019 with a Meade LX200 10inch telescope at prime focus using a ZWO ASI120MC-S camera with a 3x Barlow lens attached. AVI movie files of 2000 frames were captured which were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.

Saturn is now back in our evening sky but opposition is not until the 9th July so its still looking a little small in the eyepiece of my Meade 10inch Schmidt-cassegrain telescope. 
 
This is my first image of Saturn for this year while I was out taking images of Jupiter on the 30th May 2019, the sky condition were not too good but I did mange to get some detail :-)
 
My image was taken with a Meade LX200 10inch telescope at prime focus using a ZWO ASI120MC-S camera with a 3x Barlow lens attached. AVI movie files of 2000 frames were captured which were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.