ABC Science 1st January 2020
By: Genelle Weule

~ Stars, galaxies, dust clouds and Uranus: take a tour of the January night sky ~
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Genelle Weule (Science writer for ABC) has written another excellent article on the wonderful objects you can see in the January sky, but don’t worry if you don’t catch them in January as they will still be on show for the next couple of months as they head down into the western sky.
 
I was very happy to have been asked to contribute my images again for this article; you will also see some beautiful images in the article from my fellow SAS astro friend Dylan O’Donnell.
 
Dylan’s YouTube Channel is at:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgOf4wBnoGg8WHHHr_h4otQ
 
So hop off your comfortable lounge, grab a star chart, binoculars or telescope and have a lot of fun exploring the night sky in your own garden with family and friends :-)
 
Other helpful tools to help find your way around the night are a FREE app called ‘Star Chart’ at: https://apps.apple.com/au/app/star-chart/id345542655

Or download or print a FREE sky chart at Skymaps.com at:
 http://www.skymaps.com
*If you’re in Australia make sure you download the star chart for the Southern Hemisphere*

After taking pictures of the Moon for InOMN I then turned my attention to the planets, which were all on show in the night sky.
 
At the moment there are Jupiter and Saturn high up in the northern sky that are getting closer together and heading for a conjunction in two months time on the 14th December 2020.
 
Then the brilliant planet Mars getting higher up now in the north-eastern sky and putting on such a wonderful display with many features on show on the surface of the planet, opposition of Mars will be on the 14th October 2020.
 
Hopefully the sky will be clear enough for me to take some incredible images of our two planets coming close tighter and there seems to be no sign yet of any dust storms…yippee :-)

Images taken with a Meade LX200 10 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a ZWO 120 MC-S camera with 3x Barlow lens attached, AVI movies were captured with between 2500 & 3000 frames then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4

This was the lovely wide angle view of the planets Jupiter and Saturn with the nine day old waxing gibbous Moon low in the south western sky just before midnight on the on the 26th September 2020.
 
Jupiter & Saturn are fully in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer) and the Gibbous Moon has just entered into the neighbouring constellation of Capricornus (The Ram).
 
The sky was very bright because of the Moonlight but you could still see the patterns of the constellation with the brighter stars on display. I’ve also named some of the other constellations in the area that are now setting in the western sky.
 
Jupiter and Saturn will now been seen coming closer and closer together for there rare 20 year conjunction that will happen on the 21st December 2020…so keep an eye on this wonderful astronomical event over the next couple of months :-)
 
Image taken at on the field at Leyburn at my Stardust Observatory with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens on a camera tripod. The setting were set at ISO400 and exposure 15 seconds the focal length was 18mm and image was cropped slightly.

~ InOMN at My Stardust Observatory at Leyburn in Qld Australia ~
(Saturday the 26th September 2020)
https://moon.nasa.gov/observe-the-moon-night/
 
Because of Covid-19, I decided to drive out to my Stardust Observatory in country Queensland and just have an up close and personal experience with our Moon :-)
 
It was a beautiful clear night with no clouds at all in the sky and the most notable lunar features on display on the terminator line were the magnificent Crater Copernicus and the huge Crater Clavius in the southern highlands, which looked just stunning.
 
I did manage to show a couple of people the Moon through my telescope as they were visiting the owners of the property where my observatory is located, there were many exclamations of Wow…is that for real!
 
So I feel very happy to have shown some people the beauty of our Moon :-)
 
If you participated in InOMN please download you certificate at:
https://moon.nasa.gov/observe-the-moon-night/participate/participation-certificate/
 
The close up images that I took with the little ZWO camera are just amazing, so much detail on show…I’m very pleased with the result and will do a lot more lunar imaging with this camera in the coming months….
 
Images were taken with 10inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope using a Canon 700D camera for the full disc image, and then adding a 2x barlow lens to take closer pictures of the lunar features on the terminator line. I then replaced the DSLR camera with my ZWO ASI120MC-S camera and a 3x Barlow lens to capture the high-resolution images of the lunar surface.

If you participated in InOMN please download you certificate at:
https://moon.nasa.gov/observe-the-moon-night/participate/participation-certificate/
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We managed to grab a couple of days to visit the Queensland North Coast at Noosa last weekend and were rewarded with this magical sunset over Lake Doonella at Tewantin. While I was taking my pictures there was a very lucky fisherman reeling in quite a few flathead fish for his dinner :-)
 
If you look closely at the image you’ll see some really unusual clouds that look like fine hair floating in the sky. These clouds are called Cirrus clouds and it looks like there is a very strong wind shear up there making them spread out like fine filaments.
 
I’ve never seen Cirrus cloud in this pattern before; it looks like these particular clouds are called Cirrus fibratus clouds…how exciting!  Genus: Cirrus (curl of hair)
 
I found this information on Wikipedia at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_cloud
 
The images were taken with a Canon 70D camera with a Tamron 18-400mm lens attached set at different focal lengths with an ISO 100.

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 :-)
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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.