Wow that was just fantastic watching the live rocket launch coverage from Cape Canaveral in Florida, I took a lot of screen shots as it was progressing…just so awesome and we are now on the way to Mars...Woohoo!
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/timeline/launch/
 
Mars 2020 Mission, Perseverance Rover Launch The Perseverance rover is now on its way to Mars. It launched on July 30, 2020, at 4:50 a.m. PDT (7:50 a.m. EDT). Perseverance launched on an Atlas V-541 rocket from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
 
The launch sequence began here on the east coast of Australia (AEST) at 9.40pm 30th July 2020. Please find below my screen shot images that I took while it was happening live :-)

We are ready to go in just a few hours time, watch the launch at:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/timeline/launch/
 
If you have already ‘Sent your name to Mars’ for the Perseverance mission ‘Mars 2020” mission just go the link below, fill in your details and print a new ticket that has been stamped ready for boarding :-)
https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/mars2020/

This is another fun and educational project by our friends at NASA to make us feel that we are all part of these amazing missions of discovery…Woohoo NASA, thank you!
 
To find out more about the missions go to Mars Exploration Program at:
https://mars.nasa.gov

~ NASA's Mars 2020 Mission Perseverance ~
https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25147/mission-overview-nasas-perseverance-mars-rover/

Gulf News – Dubai _ 20th July 2020 
​
Congratulations on the successful launch this morning of the Hope Probe, by the United Arab Emirates,
​(UAE) their first spacecraft to another planet!

UAE to Mars: Historic Hope Probe takes off
The UAE Hope Probe rocket launched as planned at 1.58am UAE time in perfect weather at the Japan launch site.
https://www.emiratesmarsmission.ae

​Gulf News – Dubai _ 19th July 2020 
The UAE's Hope Probe (Al Amal in Arabic) is the first Arab interplanetary mission.

This is the first time I’ve had a clear night to view the star Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion and it is the evening of the 29th February 2020 (Leap Day).  After taking images of the Moon and Venus (which I posted on my blog earlier today) I waited until Orion was getting low in the western sky to take some images to see how bright the star Betelgeuse was and in this very dark sky it was radiating brightly. Whatever has been happening with Betelgeuse seems to be sorting itself out…
I only have very basic equipment with me as we are camping and I didn’t expect
to be taking any images because of the many people with fires and lights in the camp ground, but we have found a lovely little corner where it’s very dark and I could not be happier out here with all the mosquitoes taking images of the night sky :-)
​
The image was taken at Flanagan’s Reserve near Rathdowney in QLD with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens set at 24mm, the exposure time was just 10 seconds and ISO 2000, 10 images were stacked in DSS (Deep Sky Stacker) and processed in PS CS4.

 Moon & Venus (Leap Day)
My image were taken at Flanagan’s Reserve near Rathdowney and captures the beautiful scene that was happening in the western sky last night just after sunset on this very special leap day for the 29th February 2020, as this event only happens every 4 years, I really wanted to capture something special for the day :-)

The whole western sky had this beautiful purple coloured hue and I’m so happy it showed up in my photographs, we are away camping at the moment and the skies here are so clear for the first time in months.  Earlier I took a an image of the crescent Moon in a bright blue sky while waiting for Venus to show itself…it looked ever so pretty.

My images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens, the wide field image exposure time was 1.3 seconds and ISO250 at F3.5. The crescent Moon image was taken with the same lens with a 2x converter attached making 1280mm focal length; the exposure was 1/250th second and ISO400. Ten lunar images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.
 

I’m always looking for atmospheric phenomena in the sky, but while away in our caravan over the holidays I was washing up the dishes and to my amazement saw this colourful corona in one of the glasses.
 
We have all seen coloured soap suds from an incoming light source but this is the first time I have ever seen this light so uniformed and concentric. There is a lot of science here just in this glass of soapsuds, just like when a corona is seen around the Sun or Moon it has to do with the Suns light.
 
But in this case the light from the sun is not being refracted through ice crystals,
​but interacting with the thin layer of soap film and producing this amazing effect right here in a glass.
I wonder what you will see next time you wash up the dishes :-)
 
The image was taken on the 18th January at Lennox Head in NSW with a Canon GX7 Mark11 camera, exposure 1/160th second and ISO 125.

Keep looking up, because you never know what you’ll discover, day or night....
~ My Stardust Observatory at Leyburn ~

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.

Where I live on the Gold Coast in Qld Australia we never see the constellation of the Southern Cross upside down, because our latitude here is 28°south and that’s too high. So the Southern Cross always dips down into the horizon for quite a few hours until it’s seen again rising in the southeast later in the night or early morning.
 
While on a visit to the south island in New Zealand, I got such a wonderful surprise when I went out onto the patio and saw the Southern Cross upside down in the southern sky…I was so excited I ran inside and garbed my camera to take some images even though there was a full Moon and the sky was very light.
 
The beautiful town that we stayed in was called Kaikoura and its latitude is 42° South, this is why I could see the Southern Cross in its entirety upside down.
 
It would have been just amazing if the sky had been dark but I did my best with a full Moon in the sky and decided to take a picture of the snowy mountains in moonlight, this image below is completely lit up by the Moon and it’s just so beautiful. The moonlight lit up all the foliage naturally and the stars on show are in the northern sky and are part of the constellations of Pegasus and Andromeda.

So it just shows you no matter what light is in the sky you can always get some awesome images, you just have to always be looking up to be rewarded :-)

Visiting New Zealand
​
If you live in New Zealand and would like to know what’s in your sky tonight, then please go to the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand website and download a current star map at:
http://www.rasnz.org.nz/in-the-sky/sky-index
 
The images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and an 18-400mm Tamron lens on a tripod. The Southern Cross image was taken with lens set at 35mm; exposure time was 5 seconds and ISO 640. The snowy mountain image was an 8 second exposure, and lens set at 28mm, ISO 1000. The full Moon image was a 5 second exposure @f8 and lens set at 35mm, ISO 1000.

On the evening of the 16th November we boarded a plane for a flight from Christchurch in New Zealand to the Gold Coast in Australia.
 
What a wonderful surprise I got when I looked out my plane window and saw the beautiful colours of sunset in the evening sky with the brilliant planets Venus and Jupiter in the western sky with the constellation of Scorpius…it looked absolutely stunning!
 
When I wiggled around in my seat I also spied the constellation of the Southern Cross (Crux) with the pointers that was upside down in the south western sky, the colour gradient from a light blue sky to the inky black sky above the plane was quite breathtaking…
 
The images were taken with a Canon G7X Mark11 camera on manual focus and ISO 1600. To capture the images I had to put a jacket over my head to block out all the lights from the interior of the plane…I got many strange looks from the other passengers, but I just smiled and kept taking the pictures :-)

The bright stars Alpha and Beta Centauri, which are the pointers to the Cross, are also on display to the right.
What a glorious sight it was from my aeroplane window :-)