Blog Archives - My Stardust Observatory

~ Orion & Hyades star cluster in a pink twilight sky 30th April 2022 ~

4/30/2022

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.

Dawn conjunction with Planets & Waning Crescent Moon 28thApril 2022

4/28/2022

This was the wonderful view that I saw from my bedroom window at 4.30am this morning...Wow!

There was some cloud about, but that didn’t stop me from jumping out of bed to take some images :-)
Images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens on a tripod.

~ Dawn planets, Jupiter, Venus, Mars & Saturn with Waning Crescent Moon ~

~ The Sun with Active Sunspots and Prominences on 22nd April 2022 ~

4/22/2022

I was very surprised to capture so much detail on the solar surface because of all the cloud in the sky today.

There was a lot of activity around the biggest sunspot groups AR 2993 and AR 2994 and that prominence on the lower western limb was really firing away…but alas, the cloud then completely covered the whole sky and that was the end of that!

My images were taken with a Lunt 60mm PT solar telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens attached :-D

I’m now starting to also capture images in the monochrome settings within the camera, as I find with this setting there is more delicate detail in the prominences. I’m not very good yet at artificially colouring the Sun in Photoshop, so I’ll stick to my colour images for the time being.

~ Wow, Jupiter, Venus, Mars & Saturn in a dawn sky on the Gold Coast ~

4/20/2022

~ The planets Jupiter, Venus, Mars & Saturn in volcanic dawn sky 20th April 2022 ~

I only took these images a few hours ago and what an incredible dawn sky awaited me when I looked out my bedroom window at 5am…I could not get outside quite enough to capture the magnificent celestial spectacle before my eyes! The planets Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Saturn were all displayed on the ecliptic in an incredible magenta coloured sky…

Because of the fine volcanic particles in our atmosphere here in the Southern Hemisphere from the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai eruption we are experiencing some of the most stunning colours in our dawn and twilight skies…please enjoy my pictures :-)

My mages were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens at 18mm at between 5.15 and 5.55am 20th April 2022…Oh what a wonderful sight!
* All my images are the real colours seen in the sky, with only minute processing *

~ Jupiter, Venus, Mars & Saturn in Gold Coast dawn sky 15th April 2022 ~

4/15/2022

This was the wonderful view in the eastern sky at 5am yesterday morning when I looked up and saw Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Saturn all embedded in a soft purple and pink coloured sky… it was so beautiful :-)

The colour is still from the volcanic aerosols high up in the atmosphere from the Hunga-Tonga volcanic eruption that took place in January…The evening before I also took some incredible sunset and twilight images that went through so many different hues of colour and ended with an unusual deep purple and bright pink magenta sky…I’ve never seen such vivid colours like this before, it was quite eerie!

The dawn image was taken with a Canon G7X Mark 11 camera on manual focus. A Canon 70D was used for the first sunset photo taken at 6pm, I used the Canon G7X Mark 11 again for the deep purple twilight image taken at 6.30pm hand held, so there’s a little movement in the picture….

~ Wow ~ Volcanic Sunset sky on the 14th April 2022 ~
( At 6.00pm )

~ Gorgeous Deep Purple and Pink twilight sky from volcanic aerosols ~
( At 6.30pm )

~ Long Filaments and Active Prominences on the Sun 10th April 2022 ~

4/10/2022

It was a challenge taking this image of the Sun late yesterday afternoon, as there was a lot of cloud in the sky.

I wanted to see if there was any activity around that active sunspot area AR 2983 as it neared the western limb and was rewarded with a very active prominence. There was also an active prominence firing away on the northern eastern limb that may be a potentially new active area about to come into view.

The two large filaments on the surface of the Sun look like they’re about to join together making an extremely long filament. Safe Solar Observing is getting very interesting now J

Image taken with a Lunt 60mm PT solar telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens attached. Two sets of images were taken one for the solar disc and one for the prominences and combined in PS.

~ Volcanic Sunset on the 8th April 2022 ~

4/9/2022

It’s been some time since I’ve seen a clear sunset sky because of all the rain here in Queensland. But last night that strange coloured glow in the west produced these pretty crepuscular rays from those volcanic aerosols that amazingly are still up in the Earths upper atmosphere!

My last sighing of these volcanic aerosols was posted on the 23rd March 20222 at:
https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=183197

I see that Peter Lowenstein from Mutare in Zimbabwe is also still experiencing this phenomenon in his morning and evening skies from his posting on Spaceweather on the 3rd April at:
https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=183555

I wonder if any scientific community is monitoring these aerosols from the eruption of Hunga-Tonga that’s still being seen in our Earths atmosphere? They appear be very fine particles and it appears it’s only us here in the Southern Hemisphere that are seeing them.

Image taken with a Canon G7X Mark 11 camera on manual focus at 6pm, with 1/40th second exposure and ISO125.

~ Many Filaments & Prominences on Sun with active sunspot AR 2978 ~

4/6/2022

The Sun today had some beautiful long filaments and an active region around sunspot AR 2978. There were also some interesting prominences around the limb, one of them looked like it was spraying plasma violently out into space (north eastern limb) with another one to the south eastern limb faintly erupting on the limb.

Images were taken on the 6th April 2022 with a Lunt 60mm PT solar telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens. Two sets of images were taken one for the disc and one for the prominences, as they needed a longer exposure to capture the faint detail.
Then both images were combined in PS CS4.

Information on Spaceweather.com on Solar Cycle 25 that the Sun has now entered into:
https://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=06&month=04&year=2022

SOLAR CYCLE UPDATE: New sunspot counts from NOAA confirm that Solar Cycle 25 is racing ahead of the official forecast--and the gap is growing:

CREDIT: SPACE WEATHER PREDICTION CENTER NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

The "official forecast" comes from the Solar Cycle Prediction Panel, a group of scientists representing NOAA, NASA and International Space Environmental Services (ISES). The Panel predicted that Solar Cycle 25 would peak in July 2025 as a relatively weak cycle, similar in magnitude to its predecessor Solar Cycle 24. Instead, Solar Cycle 25 is shaping up to be stronger.
In March 2022, the sun produced 146 solar flares, including one X-flare and 13 M-flares. Auroras were sighted as far south as Colorado (+38N) and Nebraska (+42N). Multiple shortwave radio blackouts disrupted communications on ships at sea and airplanes flying over the poles. If current trends continue, April will be even busier. Stay tuned. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/solar-cycle-25-forecast-update?fbclid=IwAR0II6o75ehEkIfRW-QP4F4w1ljXx89KsQrKdhEGeJvnIm6GviIFiEjdH34

CREDIT: SPACE WEATHER PREDICTION CENTER NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

SOLAR CYCLE 25 FORECAST UPDATE
published: Monday, December 09, 2019 22:30 UTC
The NOAA/NASA co-chaired, international panel to forecast Solar Cycle 25 released their latest forecast for Solar Cycle 25. The forecast consensus: a peak in July, 2025 (+/- 8 months), with a smoothed sunspot number (SSN) of 115. The panel agreed that Cycle 25 will be average in intensity and similar to Cycle 24.

Additionally, the panel concurred that solar minimum between Cycles 24 and 25 will occur in April, 2020 (+/- 6 months). If the solar minimum prediction is correct, this would make Solar Cycle 24 the 7th longest on record (11.4 years).

SPACE WEATHER PREDICTION CENTER
NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov

Are you a teacher or home schooling your children please go to:
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/additional-resources/#outreach

Storms from the Sun booklet download at:
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/images/u33/swx_booklet.pdf

~ Eruptive Prominence and Sunspot AR 2978 on Sun 4th April 2022 ~

4/4/2022

Credit: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory

(The Sun in Ha)
There is a very active eruptive prominence on lower limb of the Sun with the area around the large sunspot group AR 2978 alive with activity on the surface. AR 2975 & AR2976 are now close to the western limb and rotating out of view, so far no active prominences have been seen in my time zone.

There are also a couple of long filaments on the surface of the Sun. I’ve just seen on Spaceweather.com that one of these large filaments just opened up into ‘A Canyon of Fire’!

Wow… a filament of magnetism whipsawed out of the suns’ atmosphere that carved a canyon at least 20.000km high and 200,000 km long…Wow, now that is power!

https://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=04&month=04&year=2022

My images were taken with a Lunt 60mm PT solar telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens attached. Two sets of images were taken one for the solar disc and one for the prominences and combined in PS.

The best exposure times that I use with this camera are for the solar disc 1/320th second and ISO200, for the prominences 1/15th second and ISO200 and I take about 30 images in a continuous burst then stack in RegiStax6 and process in PS CS4.

~ Beautiful Long Dark Filaments on the Sun 3rd April 2022 ~

4/3/2022

There were some really nice long and very dark filaments on the surface of the Sun today around active sunspot group AR 2978 and AR 2981. The other very active sunspot groups AR 2975 and AR 2976 are now close to the western limb and may produce some really lovely prominences in the next 36 hours.

My image was taken with a Lunt 60mm PT solar telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens attached. Two sets of images were taken one for the solar disc and one for the prominences and combined in PS.