This is what our skies are like here at the moment; the sky is full of dust and smoke from our severe drought out west and all the bushfires.  Our fire fighters are doing an incredible job of saving homes and many people are out helping our beautiful wildlife, which are also suffering in this 40C degree heat.
 
At last, thank goodness rain is forecast in the next couple of days, in the mean time it does make for some incredibly fiery sunset displays, even the water looks like it’s on fire!
 
Images were taken from Jabiru Island Park at Paradise Point with a Canon G7 X Mark 11 camera on manual focus; exposure was 1250th second and ISO125.

Boo!!!
Happy Halloween Everyone :-)
Spooky sunset image taken on board the cruise ship Pacific Aria on the 22nd October 2017.
Having fun with the Sun making it into a floating ghost :-))

This was the stunning view late this afternoon which marked this special day for the  ‘Vernal Equinox’ here in the southern hemisphere, the whole western sky had these spectacular crepuscular rays right up to the zenith…absolutely beautiful :-)
 
Image taken at 5.17pm on the 23rd September 2019 with a Canon Gx7 Mark11 camera set on manual at focal length of 11mm, ISO 125 and exposure was 1/1250th second.

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/

Please go to the live broadcast that both NASA and the European Southern Observatory (ESO) will be broadcasting from 5.30am on the 3rd July (Australian EST).
 
NASA has partnered with the Exploratorium in San Francisco to bring live views to people across the world of a total solar eclipse, occurring Tuesday, July 2, over South America.
 
The eclipse will only be visible directly to observers within the path of totality, which stretches across parts of Chile and Argentina.

Live webcasting for Total Solar Eclipse 2019 at La Silla
https://www.eso.org/public/
NASA Live:
https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive

With the upcoming Total Eclipse of the Sun due in two days times in Chile I’ve turned my mind to our wonderful solar eclipse we had here in Queensland, Australia on the 14th November 2012.
 
We were at a place called Ellis Beach just north of Cairns in tropical Queensland and at that time of year its notorious for heavy rain, and so it was as day dawned that the eastern sky was leaden with clouds, but then a miracle happen and from our beach location we saw the incredible eclipse of the Sun.
 
I wish everyone who has ventured to Chile and other places under the shadow best of luck for the 2nd July, seeing this spectacle is one of the most amazing things you will ever experience in your life :-)

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.

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

​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.