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.

On the evening of the 29th May three of the Galilean moons of Jupiter made a perfect isosceles triangle with the body of Jupiter, which looked lovely in the night sky :-)
 
To capture the wide field view of Jupiter with the moons Io, Europa & Ganymede, I attached a focal reducer to the little ZWO planetary camera, which was inserted into a large telescope. There was a fast flowing jet stream in the sky so the seeing was not the best, but I did managed to capture a few AVI movies for these images.
 
For the full image of Jupiter you can just see the Great Red Spot coming into view on the limb but the seeing went right off and I was unable to get any more images until later.
 
Images taken with a Meade LX200 10inch telescope at prime focus with a ZWO ASI120MC-S camera with a focus reducer attached for the wide field and a 2x Barlow lens for the full image of Jupiter. AVI movie files captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.

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.

Late yesterday afternoon at 4pm (AEST) I got the biggest thrill when I put my little 60mm Lunt solar telescope onto my mount and pointed it at the Sun and saw AR2740 going off like a rocket!!! These four images were taken over just 10 minutes in duration and it was very exciting to watch and capture.
 
If you look closely at the active region (middle of image) you’ll see the solar material being blasted away and travelling across the surface of the Sun as a dark mass of plasma…a small CME in motion!
 
I was very lucky to capture this event as the Sun was getting very low and I’d just packed away my refractor telescope, I just thought I would take a peek at the Sun in H-alpha to see if it was doing anything exciting…and Wow, it was!
 
Images taken with a Lunt 60mm solar scope and a ZWO ASI 120MC-S camera at prime focus, I captured AVI movie files and stacked them in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4…there was also a small prominence on the eastern limb so maybe there is another sunspot coming….
 
Note from Noeleen:
If you watch the slideshow you will see the path of the solar material being blasted away from the Sun
​over just a few minutes...Wow!

The next day an image of this solar flare from the Solar Dynamics Observatory was posted on Spaceweather.com 
http://www.spaceweather.com
https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov​

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

I had a lot of fun with the children who came along for the two astronomy and space sessions for Easter at the shopping centre. We put up lots of space posters to make the community room all spacey and had lots of hands on space items for the kids to touch and look at :-)
 
The children enjoyed learning about our amazing Solar System and hearing all about the different spacecrafts out there exploring the planets, my mother Pam came along to help me…thank you Mum Xxx
 
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