My Stardust Observatory - Astro Blog

~ Very special Full Moon on the 2nd April 2026 ~

4/2/2026

I was very lucky to get this image of the full Moon late last night as it was raining earlier on in the evening. It’s a very special full Moon as it’s the closest full Moon after the equinox that dictates when Easter is celebrated by many religions from around the world.

Another reason this full Moon is special is because Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen are right now on their way to orbit our Moon in the Orion spacecraft with the Artemis 11 mission. Tonight they will be looking out there windows at us here on planet Earth then going forward onto our amazing Moon…how incredible is that! After so many years humans are going back to the Moon…WooHoo!

NASA Artemis 11 mission to the Moon
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/artemis/

My image was taken with a ZWO Seestar S50 telescope capturing a RAW video and stacking within in the unit, and then processed in PS.

~ CREDIT: NASA

~ Supernova SN2026cff in Galaxy NGC 3660 on 28th March 2026 ~

3/30/2026

After seeing Pierre Ponsard image of SN2026cff in NGC 3660 on Spaceweather.com dated 18th March 2026, I decided to try and capture a picture as well of the Supernova from here at home.

I wasn’t sure that the Seestar S50 would be able to find it with such a light suburban sky, as the galaxy was very faint at 14th magnitude.

The Crater constellation was quite high up the eastern sky and to my utter delight after rechecking my images with Odd Trondal image that he posted on the 3rd April and taken on the 28th March 2026 on Spaceweather.com I have indeed captured the supernova.

Image was taken with Seestar S50 telescope, exposure time was 3160 seconds, the image is cropped and the bright star to the right is called HD 98853, which is 6.94 magnitude. I use the excellent Stellarium App for all my information on the stars.

~ Waxing Gibbous Moon (12 days old) on 30th March 2026 ~

3/30/2026

~ By the light of the silvery Moon ~
it was such a treat to have a lovely clear evening to take some images of our waxing gibbous Moon in the night sky.

Image was taken with a Seestar telescope using the RAW movie mode and stacking the frames within the unit, processed in PS.

I really like this new system of stacking a RAW movie in the Seestar unit then processing the image in Photoshop.
Usually I would capture about 20 jpeg images then stack them in Registak6 then use the wavelet feature to bring out more detail, but I think this method I’m using now gives a more realistic picture of the Moon :-)

A screen shot from my Stellarium App showing what phase of the Moon ~

~ Waxing nearly First Quarter Moon on the 25th March 2026 ~

3/25/2026

I managed to get another bit of clear sky this evening to capture the nearly 1st quarter Moon at 8pm on the 25th March 2026. First Quarter Moon would be in nine hours time at 5am on the 26th March 2026.

My image/video was taken with a Seestar S50 telescope capturing a RAW movie file and stacking frames within the unit, then transferred the image to computer to process lightly in PS :-)

~ Waxing (3 day old) Crescent Moon in western sky 22nd March 2026 ~

3/22/2026

I only just managed to capture this little crescent Moon very low in the western sky in between clouds patches. At three days old, it shows the oval shape lunar mare called the Sea Of Crises (Mare Crisium) on the lower eastern limb.

The Seestar S50 telescope had a bit of trouble locating the Moon for some reason so it took a few turns to find it, I only just managed to capture it before it disappeared into the trees ☺ ☺ ☺

Image was taken with a Seestar S50 telescope, this time I captured a video and stacked it within the Seestar unit, then transferred the image to my computer to process lightly in PS.

~ LEGO Northern Lights Diorama Set No: 40785 ~

3/7/2026

~ LEGO Wonders of the Natural World Northern Lights Diorama 40785 ~

I was given this lovely little LEGO collectible set from my daughter when she purchase one of her other LEGO sets as it was a FREE gift.

I did have fun making it as it reminded me of our visit to Norway in March 2018 to view the magnificent Northern Lights :-)

This LEGO Northern Lights Diorama (40785) is the 4th building kit in a LEGO collectible series dedicated to the wonders of nature. The scene depicts a Northern Hemisphere landscape with a skyscape featuring the aurora borealis.

It has snow-topped trees with an added glow-in-the-dark moon element and the colourful tiles that represent the Northern Lights and their reflections.

This Northern Lights diorama depicts a Northern Hemisphere forest landscape complete with model trees and a night sky featuring the aurora borealis…it’s quite beautiful in its detail.

Please find also a couple of photos of the real northern lights taken on board the Hutegruten Cruise Ship in Norway in March 2018 and also on Holland America Cruise Ship 'Koningsdam' in Alaska in May 2024.

~ The real Northern Lights in March 2018 in Norway ~

Links to these blogs in Norway in March 2018 at:
https://www.mystardustobservatory.com/astro-blog/-an-explosion-of-auroras-in-the-night-sky-on-the-9th-march-2018

https://www.mystardustobservatory.com/astro-blog/wow-im-under-the-northern-lights-right-now-its-just-awesome

And more recently in Alaska in May 2024 at:
https://www.mystardustobservatory.com/astro-blog/-wow-northern-lights-seen-near-skagway-in-alaska-1st-may-2024

~ Total Lunar Eclipse on Crown Princess Cruise ship 3rd March 2026 ~

3/3/2026

~ Single image on moving ship with Canon 70D camera & 70-400mm Tamron lens ~

~ Total Lunar Eclipse in Leo (The Lion) ~

We are cruising up the Queensland coastline on board the Crown Princess and even though it started out cloudy for the lunar eclipse the clouds parted just before totality and Wow!

The fully eclipsed Moon looked just awesome on the top deck of the ship. The ship was moving quite a lot so I had to take many images and Yay!

I managed to get a few that were in focus, I’ve also included an image of what most of my pictures looked like.

But it’s not easy taking astronomy images on board a moving ship….but where there’s a will, there is always a way :-)

We have just been cruising up and down the Queensland coast near the Great Barrier Reef for the last couple of days trying to dodge a cyclone which has now just crossed the coast near Cairns; the Captain has done a fantastic job of keeping us all safe on board the ship.

My lunar images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and Tamron 28-400mm lens attached to a tripod; the wide field was taken with a Canon G7x camera on the top deck of Crown Princess.

~ Total Lunar Eclipse in Leo (The Lion) on Crown Princess Cruise Ship on 3rd March 2026 ~

Beautiful Sunrays at sunrise this morning on 25th March 2026

2/26/2026

It’s sometimes really hard to capture in a photo what you actually see; this was one of those times! There were the golden colours of sunrise across the sky and then this large thick cloud that produced a powerful ray of light up the eastern sky.

These rays are called Crepuscular clouds and depending on how wide and thick the clouds are with the Sun behind them, then this determines the shape of the sunrays. My image taken with an iPhone :-)

The science behind these magical looking sunbeams!
By Mitchel Cooms at The National Weather Desk

They may look unworldly, but crepuscular rays can be explained with basic physics. Meteorologist Mitchel Coombs shares has all the details on these heavenly rays!

Please find below an excellent explanation of crepuscular rays by Mitchel Cooms.

~ Spotless surface on the Sun today on 25th February 2026 ~

2/25/2026

~ Spotless Sun ~

Yay! Finally after a couple of days of cloudy weather the clouds parted late this afternoon and I could capture a picture of our spotless Sun.

Its been four years now since we’ve seen a smooth unblemished surface on the face of the Sun, but I’m sure it’s not going to last for very long as this active cycle has not finished yet by a long shot!

Image taken with a SeestarS50 telescope with the attached solar filter and processed in PS.

Spaceweather.com at:
https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=24&month=02&year=2026

CREDIT: Spaceweather.com

THE SUN IS FLATLINING: With no sunspots actively flaring, the sun's X-ray output has flatlined. The quiet is likely to continue for at least another 24 hours. NOAA forecasters say there is no more than a 1% chance of M- or X-class solar flares on Feb. 24th. Aurora alerts: SMS Tex t
WHERE HAVE ALL THE SUNSPOTS GONE? Click on this image and take a careful look around the solar disk. Can you find any sunspots? We can't either

This week has brought the first "spotless days" since 2022. So far, Feb. 22nd and Feb. 23rd have had completely blank suns. There have been no sunspots on the solar disk, breaking an uninterrupted 4 years of non-stop sunspot activity.
What does this mean? It's an early warning of Solar Minimum, the low point of the 11-year solar cycle. During years around Solar Minimum, whole months can go by without a single sunspot, racking up dozens of spotless days in a row. Between 2018 and 2020 (the last Solar Minimum) there were more than 700 spotless days in total. You can find the daily counts right here on Spaceweather.com.

Solar Cycle 25 still has years of life left in it. However, these spotless days tell us that the current cycle is waning. Sunspots will be back--probably tomorrow--but today is a preview of things to come.

https://www.spaceweather.com

~ A beautiful solar halo around the Sun on 9th February 2026 ~

2/9/2026

The clouds are back again, but I didn’t mind at all this time because when I looked up high in the sky there in all its glory was a beautiful solar halo around the Sun.

My image was taken with a Canon G7x Mark11 camera on manual focus…. keep looking up you never know what you’ll see ;-)