​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.

​I had another peek at the Sun late yesterday afternoon and Yep…it’s spotless again! 
​
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.

Yay! There’s a new sunspot on the Sun today for the New Year and it’s been designated AR2732, it’s quite small and faint but it may turn into something exciting for us solar observers :-)
 
Images taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm with a 2x teleconverter, a glass solar filter was attached to the lens for safe viewing and imaging of the solar surface. 10 images were stacked in RegiStak6 and lightly processed in PS CS4…Happy New Year to everyone!

Christmas Day Sun Today :-)
Our beautiful Sun today on Christmas Day after weeks and weeks of rain and thunderstorms…Merry Christmas to all and happy holidays!
 
I just had to add a Santa hat to our very bland Sun for fun :-)
 
Image taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens with a 2x teleconverter attached, a glass solar filter was fitted to the lens for safe viewing and imaging. Exposure time was 1/500th second and ISO200.

~ Current information on the Sun ~
 
The Sun is now experiencing a period of solar minimum with over 200 days this year without sunspots on its surface, gone are the days when so much activity could be see on the surface of the Sun…I really miss all the excitement!
 
The image (left and above) of the Sun that I took on Christmas Day is completely bland and spotless!
​
To safely take images of the solar surface you must always use a solar filter on the lens of your camera or telescope. I haven’t even used my Lunt 60mm (Ha) solar telescope much this year as the Sun has been very quite in this H-alpha wavelength as well.
 
But there has been another type of activity on the Sun that’s quite intriguing, and that is these corona holes that open up and expel subatomic solar particles throughout the solar system. They are not as powerful as a CME but they still produce some awesome aurora when they hit our atmosphere.
 
When these solar particles hit the oxygen and nitrogen in our Earths atmosphere they excite the gases and release a photon of light that produces the coloured curtains of light of the auroras.
 
It was one of these incredible episodes that produced the stunning northern lights  (Aurora Borealis) that my husband and I witnessed in March 2018 when we were on board the Hutigruten ship called the Nordkapp that cruised up and down the Norwegian coastline. Wow…what a magical experience that was!!!!

~ The Northern Lights in the Arctic Night ~
My aurora image won a David Malin award this year in the Nightscapes section. If you go to the link you will see my picture and all the other stunning astronomy images that won awards this year at: https://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/news_events/astrofest/awards/

The golden sunset yesterday afternoon on North Stradbroke Island (Minjerribab) was just so beautiful. As the tide was coming in on the beach at Adder Point I was able to capture a pretty glitter path to the Sun, where you can see hundreds of little Suns reflected in the waves and on the water.
 
There are many ways to enjoy and capture our amazing Star the Sun :-)
 
Image was taken on the 27th August 2018 with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens set at 70mm and F11, the exposure time was 1/500th of a second and ISO 100.

To find out more about this beautiful island and its culture please go to the Queensland Governments website at:
https://www.npsr.qld.gov.au/parks/naree-budjong-djara/culture.html

There had been quite a lot of cirrocumulus cloud mixed with high cirrus clouds crossing the sky today which always makes me keep an eye out for atmospheric phenomena of any kind…especially Sundogs and solar halo’s.
 
But today I got a real treat; not only was there a lovely Sundog in the sky, there were also these unusual soft pastel streaks of thin coloured cloud between thicker layers of clouds, they were very pretty and striking in colour.
 
The colours are caused by the light from the Sun being diffracted out in the sky by the tiny ice crystals in the thin cirrus cloud which creates this rainbow like effect…it’s the first time I’ve ever seen it spread out so far across the sky like this :-)
 
If you would like to read more about these pretty iridescent clouds please go to Les Cowley’s excellent Atmospheric Optics website at: https://www.atoptics.co.uk/droplets/irid1.htm
 
Images were taken on the 7th August 2018 with just my point and shot Canon G15 camera that I always keep in my handbag; the camera was set on manual focus. 

I had some fun today taking these images of the Sun and Moon with just my camera and lens set up.
I used a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens plus a 2x telecoverter with a glass solar filter safely attached to the front of the lens, this made for a focal length of 1280mm, the camera was attached to a tracking HEQ5 mount.
 
I already had the tracking mount setup when I took some image earlier in the day with my solar telescope, and I thought…Hmmm, why not put my camera on the mount and track the sky, all I did was take the adapter bracket off the bottom of the Lunt solar scope and attached to the bottom of the Canon 70D camera and presto,
​I was on my way :-)
 
You can just make out the sunspot group AR2715 on the surface of the Sun and the Moon is in a waxing gibbous phase, during the evening I used the same lens at 18mm and took a wide field photo of Jupiter above the Moon with the constellation of Scorpius rising in the east…by this time the sky was very light from the Moon, but the scene looked very pretty in the night sky.
 
So how did I take the pictures, for both the Sun and the Moon images I did a burst of 20 images then stacked them in RegiStax6 and lightly processed them in PS CS4. The exposures for both objects is very short, the Sun 1/500th second and the Moon 1/250th second and ISO100 or ISO200.

These photos do really show that you can get some great astrophotography images even if you don’t have an expensive telescope. You can still take really good shots of both the Sun and Moon with just an ordinary camera tripod, but having a tracking mount like the one mentioned above does make it so much easier to take images.

The Sun has been so quite visually for a long now, so when a sunspot emerges everyone is excited, unfortunately its been cloudy here so this is the first time I’ve been able to get the solar scope out to take some pictures, to add to this, we have a bit of smoke in the sky from some burning off, so the sky’s a bit hazy…
 
I was hoping to catch a solar prominence from AR2713 as it hit the western limb of the Sun, but that did not happen and the larger sunspot group AR2715 seems to be getting smaller. While taking this image AR2715 brightened slightly and if you look closely at the shape of the sunspot you can see a pretty heart shape…that heart shape sunspot is larger than our planet Earth!
 
Image taken a with a H-alpha Lunt 60mm solar telescope and a ZWO ASI 120MC-S CCD camera at prime focus, AVI file stacked in RegisStax6 and processed in PS CS4 :-)

NASA invites you to come along on one of the hottest rides ever by sending your name to the Sun on board The Parker Solar Probe, all names will be on a microchip which will be placed on board the spacecraft during its amazing journey to the Sun.
 
The spacecraft is scheduled to launch on July 31 aboard a Delta IV rocket, but the launch window will be from July 31st to August 19th 2018 from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The Parker Solar Probe will provide new data on solar activity and make critical contributions to our ability to forecast major space-weather events that impact life on Earth. (This is so exciting because I love observing the Sun)

To find out more about this amazing mission to the Sun please go to the mission website at: http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/public-invited-to-come-aboard-nasa-s-first-mission-to-touch-the-sun
 
The spacecraft, designed and built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and managed by NASA, will fly around Venus seven times to get itself into orbit around the Sun in December 2024.

So what are you waiting for, this will be the closest you’ll ever get to our living Star, the Sun.
So have some fun and get yourself a ticket so your name can come along for the ride...I did :-)

Sunspot AR2699 on the 9th February 2018
 
GROWING SUNSPOT: Sunspot AR2699 continues to grow, more than doubling in size since it appeared on Feb. 4th. This image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the sunspot as compared with the size of the Earth:
 
The sunspot has developed an unstable "beta-gamma" magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares.
​NOAA forecasters estimate a 15% chance of such explosions on Feb. 9th. Free: Solar Flare Alerts.
 
With two primary dark cores larger than Earth and a scattering of moon-sized magnetic condensations stretching more than 100,000 km across the surface of the sun, AR2699 is an easy target for backyard solar telescopes. 

Story Credit: http://www.spaceweather.com
Image Credit: SDO solar observatory at: https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov

My Image below was taken with a 127mm refractor telescope using a Canon 700D camera fitted and a 2x Barlow lens, a glass solar filter was attached to the front of the telescope lens for safe viewing and imaging of the Sun.
I also use a HEQ5 Pro mount for tracking.