I travelled out to ‘My Stardust Observatory’ specifically to try and take some images of Comet C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) in a dark sky and was rewarded with one clear night of observing.
 
The comet was easily seen and positioned near the bright star Dschubba in the head of the constellation of Scorpius and showed a lovely clear tail. The pretty greenish colour is due to emission of diatomic carbon gases and looked just stunning among the countless stars in this part of the starry sky.
 
I wanted to do a wide field image to capture the full beauty of this colourful area of nebulosity around the brilliant star Antares so I used a Canon 70-200mm F2.8 lens and Canon 6D Mark 2 camera that was piggybacked on top of my tracking Meade 10inch LX200 telescope.
 
The first image was a wide field taken at 135mm with 25x2 minute images stacked in DSS and processed in PS CS4…. The second image was taken at 200mm with 5x4 minute images stacked in DSS and processed in PS CS4.
 
The Comet made its closest approach to Earth on the 14th July 2022 and from observations it seems to be still brightening. It will reach its closest point to the Sun at perihelion on December 19th 2022.
 
If you want to keep a live track of the comets journey through the stars please go to The Sky Live at: https://theskylive.com/where-is-c2017k2
 
Happy Comet Hunting, Noeleen :-)

Now is the perfect time to look at and also capture pictures of Jupiter, the planet is so bright rising in the eastern sky an hour after sunset that cannot miss it!
 
Jupiter is at opposition on the 26th September, that means that the planet will rise at the same time as the sun sets and will be in the sky for the whole night, it will also be at best viewing as its at its closest to our Earth.
 
When observing and taking images of the planets the sky conditions have to be so steady, if there is any moisture or jet streams in the air it’s very difficult to obtain good videos for stacking.
 
Sometimes you have to be very patience and just keep watching your computer or camera screen and wait for that few minutes when the seeing goes calm. Or another trick is to wait until the planet is half or three quarters way up the sky or near the zenith where the seeing is usually a bit better.
 
This is my first image of Jupiter for 2022 and I’m quite happy with the result, even though there was a lot of moisture in the sky.
 
My images were taken at ‘My Stardust Observatory’ with a Meade 10inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a ZWO ASI 120MC –S planetary CMOS camera.
​AVI videos were captured and stacked in RegiSta6 and processed in PS CS4.

The sky was not very steady when I took my first images of Saturn 2022, as there was a lot of moisture in the air.  But I still managed to capture a fair picture that shows the Cassini division ring and some detail on the surface.
 
Better nights will come soon I’m sure when this wet weather passes…. I hope!
 
My images were taken at My Stardust Observatory with a Meade 10inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a ZWO ASI 120MC –S planetary CMOS camera.
​AVI videos were captured and stacked in RegiSta6 and processed in PS CS4.

We are camping at the moment at Flanagan Reserve at Rathdowney near the NSW border. Right in front of our camp facing west is Mt Maroon and 50 minutes after sunset what should I see but the lovely waxing crescent Moon with planet Mercury just about to be occulted by a mountain :-)

Rathdowney is about 150 kilometres west of the Gold Coast out in the country so it has very dark skies at night; to my delight those pretty rusty deep orange volcanic aerosols are still showing up in the twilight sky from the Hunga-Tonga eruption.

A young 2 or 3 day old Moon is the perfect time to take a photo of this lunar phenomenon called Earthshine; it’s just the Earths light reflecting back onto the Moon’s surface but it looks pretty awesome!
​
Images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 28-400mm lens; the first image was a 4 second exposure with ISO100. The lunar images were taken with same camera and lens, set on 400mm with 20 images stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

This is the first clear sunset sky that I’ve seen in over three weeks and what a lovely surprise to see such stunning colours from those volcanic aerosols that are still in the atmosphere from the Hunga-Tonga volcanic eruption.  You can see the full constellation of Orion within these coloured particles.

I’ve also notice that Tara Williams in NSW and Peter Lowenstein from Zimbabwe have also posted their observations of these volcanic aerosols on Spaceweather.com over the last couple of days…Hello to the both of you :-)
​
My Images were taken at my dark sky site at Leyburn where I have my Stardust Observatory with a Canon 70D camera and an 18-400mm lens, with a 4 second and 6 second exposure and ISO200.

A short video with my Canon 70D camera of the volcanic coloured sky taken an hour after the sun had set.

It’s just after sunset on Monday the 2nd May 2022 and I can already see that the western sky has a lot of those volcanic aerosols on the horizon from the Hung-Tonga eruption. It always starts off like a white halo and then that soft yellow colour in the shape of an arch is seen across and up the horizon.

 It’s quite amazing how many different colours are displayed as the suns light is refracted off the sunlit volcanic particles. I began my first image at 5.43pm and ended with Orion going down into a fiery red coloured horizon at 6.44 pm. I’ve made a slideshow for you to enjoy :-)

Over the past couple of months the colours have been anywhere from stunning purple and pinks to these lovely golden and red colours here tonight.
​
My images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a 28-400mm lens on a camera tripod.

The full Constellation of Leo (The Lion) in the Northern Sky with (M44) Beehive Star Cluster in Cancer and Coma Berenices Star Cluster. If you are in the northern hemisphere you will notice that we see Leo upside down…Hehe :-)
 
If you are in a very dark sky it’s quite amazing how much detail you can capture with just your DSLR camera and a wide field lens on a camera tripod.  Just open up the aperture as far as it will go and do about a 20 second exposure and up the ISO to about 2000 or more. (You will have to check the picture to make sure the stars are not trailing, if they are, then shorten the exposure time an up the ISO a little bit to capture the detail)
 
Image was taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens, with an exposure of 20 seconds and ISO2500.

​I’m out at our dark sky site at Leyburn where my Stardust Observatory is located and while checking to see if the sky was clearing, I looked back toward our caravan and saw the whole constellation of Orion setting in the western sky…the car and caravan looked perfect to take a photo :-)
 
The purple hue in the background sky is from the volcanic aerosols still lingering in the atmosphere from the Hung Tonga volcanic eruption from last January.
 
I could see there were some rolling dark clouds coming in from the east so I quickly took some wide field pictures around the sky with just my camera on a tripod. It’s quite amazing how much detail you can get with just a 20 second exposure in a really dark sky with no tracking!
 
Image was taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens, with an exposure of 20 seconds and ISO2500.

This was the beautiful view this evening at 6.20pm with the large open star cluster Hyades in Taurus going down in the pretty pink twilight sky in the west. I was hunting for planet Mercury that was near the Pleiades, but it was hidden further down on the horizon behind the treetops!

A little later at 6.35pm the Constellation of Orion was also following with still the pretty colours of purple and pink in the twilight sky. 

I have finally made it out to my Stardust Observatory for the May new Moon long weekend after many months of flooding rain here in Queensland.  I’ll post more images if I’m lucky enough to get a couple of clear nights of observing :-)
​
These two Images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a 28-400mm lens on a camera tripod; the Hyades image was an exposure of 6 seconds and ISO640. The Orion image was an exposure time of 8 seconds and ISO2500; both are just a single image.

We’ve had some strange colourful sunsets in the western sky for the past couple of days here on the Gold Coast.  Then I realised from some postings on Spaceweather.com that it could be aerosols in the atmosphere from the volcanic plume left over from the Tonga-Hunga eruption.
 
Thank you Peter Lowenstein from Zimbabwe & Tara Williams from Pottsville NSW for highlighting this with your postings on Spaceweather.
https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=183195
​
https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=183147
 
I got really excited to see what I could capture but had to drive up to Mt Tamborine to get a good western horizon, so I grabbed my husband and said we were going on an adventure, told him to grab a beer and lets go…
 
After the Sun had set, we waited and watched the sky above where the Sun has set and you could definitely see the aerosols in the sky all along the horizon and up into the sky.

​As the time went by, you could then see crepuscular rays forming in this material. I was so pleased to have made the effort to drive up the mountain; it was well and truly worth it :-)
 
Images taken with a Canon 70D camera and an 18-400mm lens, my husband took the image of my taking photos with his iPhone :-)

Please go to NASA’s JPL Earth Science website to read more on this eruption at:
Tonga Eruption Sent Ripples Through Earth’s Ionosphere
Feb. 4, 2022
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/tonga-eruption-sent-ripples-through-earths-ionosphere
 
When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, 2022, it unleashed a violent explosion with the equivalent force of 4 to 18 megatons of TNT, according to estimates from NASA geologist Jim Garvin.
 
This explosion produced an acoustic shockwave that was strong enough to perturb the ionosphere, the outer layer of the atmosphere that starts about 50 to 56 miles (80 to 90 kilometers) above Earth’s surface and contains electrons ionized by the Sun’s energy.
 
Further reading at:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149367/dramatic-changes-at-hunga-tonga-hunga-haapai 
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149474/tonga-volcano-plume-reached-the-mesosphere

​Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center