The Sun has these incredibly active sunspot groups on its surface numbered AR2866 & AR2868 with another sunspot developing not far away numbered AR2869.
The two smaller sunspots nearing the western limb are AR2863 & AR2865.
 
I’m at my Stardust Observatory this weekend and just had to take some images of these wonderful active regions on the solar surface  :-)

My image was taken with a Canon 70D camera & Canon 100-400mm lens with 2x teleconverter = 1280mm focal length with solar filter attached…. The exposure was 1/500th second and ISO100, 20 images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PSCS4.

Movie taken with my Canon 70D and Canon 100-400mm lens plus 2x teleconverter = Focal length 1280mm

I was out at my Stardust Observatory and even though it was a lovely clear sky all around me, when I went to take a photo of the setting Sun, there was this huge smoky band on the western horizon from a large bushfire. Within minutes the Sun was setting into the thick fiery atmosphere and being pulled into an egg shape!
 
I had to quickly take the solar filter off the lens to capture the Sun as it was disappearing into the thick smog; it went this amazing bright pink colour before it completely disappeared…it was very exciting. You can also just make out those two large sunspot groups AR2866 & AR2868 on the surface.

My images were taken on my last new moon weekend, with a Canon 70D camera & Canon 100-400mm lens with 2x teleconverter = 1280mm focal length with solar filter taken off the lens, the thick smoke acted as filter.
(This is the real hot pink colour of the Sun with no processing)

On the evening of the 10th September the 3 day old waxing crescent Moon came to within 4 degrees of Venus low in the western sky. With this phase of the Moon you can also see that wonderful celestial phenomenon called earthshine displayed on the lunar surface.
 
Earthshine is now well understood as sunlight from Earth’s clouds being reflected back onto the lunar surface producing this beautiful soft glow on the Moons unlit surface.
 
I post a lot of my images onto Dr Tony Phillips website called Spaceweather.com
​Dr Phillips has written an article call ‘What is the Da Vinci Glow?’ It’s a very interesting read, please go to the link below and see how Leonardo Da Vinci over 500 years ago worked out what earthshine really was :-)
https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2018/05/16/what-is-the-da-vinci-glow/
 
I found this really nice YouTube video by Dr John Mason from the Southern Downs Planetarium & Science Centre. Where he takes you outside into the garden to look at the Earthshine on the Moon and view the De Vinci Glow. His view on this night was very similar to what I have captured here with my image.

In this video Dr John Mason talks about the magnificent conjunction of the crescent moon and the brilliant planet Venus.

What a stunning view it was this evening in the western sky at my Stardust Observatory, with the crescent Moon near Mercury and Venus above with the star Spica not far away.

Its not very often you can see or even capture this elusive planet as its orbit is very quite close to the Sun, also you have to have a clear western horizon even to see tiny Mercury low in the sky.

My Image was taken at my Stardust Observatory with a Canon 70D camera and an 18-400mm lens @28mm; exposure time was 4 seconds and ISO400 :-)

It was such a beautiful evening with the nearly full Moon between the planets of Saturn and Jupiter rising above the ocean on Cotton Tree beach at Maroochydore. (Jupiter is now at opposition)
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Because it’s Saturday night, there were lots of people still walking along the beach enjoying the bright moonlight on the water…Image was taken with a Canon 70D Camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens @18mm, the exposure time was 10 seconds and ISO 400.

~ Jupiter above Ocean at Opposition ~
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Jupiter is only a couple of days away from opposition, so I was very excited to take the opportunity after sunset to race down to the beach and set up my camera and tripod in the sand dunes and capture some pictures of Jupiter appearing above the horizon on the ocean…You’ll also see Saturn above Jupiter on the ecliptic.

It was a beautiful sight to see :-)

My image was taken at Cotton Tree Beach at Maroochydore with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens set at 20mm, the exposure time was 3.2 seconds and ISO1250.

We are away at the moment on the Sunshine Coast in QLD and the weather today was just perfect!

When I looked up into the afternoon sky I saw this bright gibbous Moon embedded into a beautiful clear blue sky…. a few hours later at 10pm, I went back outside and took some more images in the dark night time sky :-)

The orientation of the Moon is how it’s seen here in the Southern Hemisphere… I used a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens with a 2x tele converter making a focal length of 1280mm that was attached to a camera tripod, both images are cropped.
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The exposure time for the daytime image was 1/50th second and ISO 100, the night time image exposure was 1/80th second and ISO 100, 10 images each were captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.
Have fun looking for a daytime Moon :-)

It’s winter here in Australia and at this time of year you can see right into the heart of our Milky Way galaxy at the zenith. It’s a magnificent sight to behold when seen from a very dark sky site with no city lights.
 
Along with wanting to capture the whole Milky Way sky from Aquila to the Southern Cross, I’ve always wanted to capture the dark shape of the “Emu in the Sky” that’s in the same area of sky and I’ve drawn onto the image to show the shape.
 
This well known aboriginal story of the Emu was once an important time for the indigenous people of Australia to know when to collect Emu eggs, as they were an essential food source for there people. They used the dark shape of the Emu to guide them during this very important seasonal event…what a wonderful celestial story J
 
Image taken at my Stardust Observatory with a Canon 6D Mk11 camera and a Tokina 10-17mm fisheye lens set at 17mm, the camera was attached to the top of a tracking telescope; because of the very wide sky view you’ll also see the planets Jupiter and Saturn plus the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) in the image.
 
There were 20 images captured with an exposure time of 1½ minute each with corresponding dark frames, using ISO3200. Images stacked in DSS and processed in PS CS4.
 
To find out more about indigenous astronomy and the Emu story please go to the links below:
 
The Kamilaroi and Euahlayi Emu in the Sky
By Robert Fuller
http://aboriginalastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-kamilaroi-and-euahlayi-emu-in-sky.html
 
Exploring the Astronomical Knowledge and traditions of indigenous Australians
By Duane Hamacher
http://aboriginalastronomy.blogspot.com/2011/04/coal-sack-and-emu-in-er-i-mean-llama-in.html
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Download a Skymap for the Southern Hemisphere at Skymaps.com at:
​ http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html

On the last new Moon weekend in July, I only had one clear night at my Stardust Observatory, so I tried out my new Canon 6D Mk11 full frame camera with a couple of wide field lenses to capture some pictures of the star filled sky of the Milky Way.
 
At this time of the year the Southern Cross with the brilliant stars in Centaurs are starting to head down into the south-western sky, and the starlight from the Milky Way is blazing above at the Zenith.
 
With the camera attached to the top of a tracking Meade LX200 10inch telescope I captured a few lovely images of the dark Milky Way night sky.
 
This image shows to the left the spectacular stars of Alpha and Beta Centauri that point the way to the Southern Cross.  These two stars are also known Rigil Kentaurus (Alpha Cen) and Hadar (Beta Cen). Alpha Centauri is a triple star system with one of its stars called Proxima Centaui that’s the closest star to our Sun at just 4.3 light-years away!
 
The Southern Cross (Crux) is the smallest constellation in the sky and has some very colourful stars. At the top there is the pretty yellow star Gamma Crucis, the bottom blue star is Alpha Crucis and points to the south celestial pole. The other stars are to the left Beta Crucis with the Jewel Box star cluster (NGC 4755) close by and to the right is another blue star called Delta Crucis with the orange-hued star Epsilon Crucis just below.
 
To the bottom of the Southern Cross is the large dark nebula known as the Coalsack Nebula that spans 7x5 degrees and when viewed from a very dark sky looks just magnificent. There’s so much gas and dust in this area it’s blotting out the starlight from behind.
 
Images taken with a Canon 6D Mk11 camera and Canon 50mm F1.8 lens set at f4 and ISO3200, 15 images were captured and stacked in DSS with corresponding dark frames and processed in PS, the image is cropped.
 
To find out more about this area of the sky please see star map below or click on link below to print one out.
https://www.iau.org/static/public/constellations/gif/CRU.gif
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Venus looked brilliant in the western sky with the pretty sunset colours reflected in the billabong water at Leyburn near my Stardust Observatory…it made for a very beautiful picture :-)
 
Image taken on the 10th July 2021 at 5.46pm with a Canon G7X Mark 11 camera on manual focus. The aperture was set at f2.2 with an exposure time of 1/60th second and ISO1600.

In the image above, I moved around the billabong to position Venus so I could get the planet reflected in the still waters, it looked very lovely indeed with the sunset colours and trees :-)
 
My Image was taken with Canon G7X Mark 11 camera on manual focus with an exposure of 1/30th second, f1.8 and the ISO1600.