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.
 

~ Our Sun on 20_02_2020 ~
 
I just had to take a photo of our Sun today for this special numerical date of the 20th of February 2020, because it’s such an awesome date to remember the year when solar minimum occurred…. and Yes, the Sun’s still ever so quite and spotless today :-)
 
Image taken with a Canon 70D camera and an 18-400mm Tamron lens with a 2x converter (focal length 1280mm) with a glass solar filter attached to the lens for safe solar imaging. The exposure time was 1/400th second and ISO 320, 10 images stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.

To read more about our quite Sun and solar minimum please go to this excellent article written by Dr Tony Phillips from Spaceweather.com
https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2019/12/17/sunspots-set-a-space-age-record/
 
If your are interested in keeping an eye on what the Suns doing daily, then please go to NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory website at:
https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Goddard Space Flight Centre has just released two YouTube videos to celebrate
​SDO’s 10th Anniversary of watching the Sun.
Please see below the short video...'SDO Celebrates a Decade of Watching Sun'

Below is the longer and informative video called
‘Highlights From SDO’s 10 years of Solar Observation’
 
In February 2020, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory — SDO — is celebrating its 10th year in space. Over the past decade the spacecraft has kept a constant eye on the Sun, studying how the Sun creates solar activity and drives space weather — the dynamic conditions in space that impact the entire solar system, including Earth.
 
Since its launch on Feb. 11, 2010, SDO has collected millions of scientific images of our nearest star, giving scientists new insights into its workings. SDO’s measurements of the Sun — from the interior to the atmosphere, magnetic field, and energy output — have greatly contributed to our understanding of our closest star. SDO’s images have also become iconic — if you’ve ever seen a close-up of activity on the Sun, it was likely from an SDO image.

We’ve had a lot of rain over the last two months, but it’s been clear enough to take some lovely pictures of our beautiful Moon.
 
At this phase the eleven and a half day old Moon shows many of the dark lunar seas (Maria) on its surface. There are also some very prominent craters on display with the large craters called Tycho, Copernicus and Plato in view.
(I’ve marked some of the more interesting places on the surface in the second image)
 
The next eleven-day-old Moon will be on the 7th March 2020, you may like to revisit the Moon again and look at some of these wonderful features on the lunar surface with your binoculars or telescope.
 
If you live in the Northern hemisphere you may have noticed something different about my image, Yes, it’s upside down… that’s the way we view the Moon here in the Southern hemisphere ‘In the land down under’ J
 
My images were taken with a Meade 10inch LX200 Schmidt-Cassergrain telescope with a 6.3 focal reducer attached to capture the full disc of the Moon. I used a Canon 700D DSLR camera to capture the images, exposure time was 1/200th second and ISO100. Twelve images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.