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Planet Venus as seen in Meade 10inch LX200 SCT on 22nd May 2023

5/22/2023

I’m at my Stardust Observatory for the May new Moon weekend and I had to get out quite early to capture this picture of Venus as the sky was still light. The view over to the north-western part of the sky has lots of trees but I did managed to capture three short AVI videos of the planet…. Yay!

Because Venus is very bright it shows up with these pretty colours, if you want to remove them for a more natural colour of the planet there is a setting in RegiStax6 called RGB balance. I find this removes those refracted colours even though I really like them :-)

Images were taken with a Meade LX200 10inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a ZWO ASI 120MC camera with a 3x Barlow lens attached, AVI videos were captured then stacked in RegiSta6 and processed in PS CS4.

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~ Venus & Orion after sunset in a glorious volcanic coloured sky ~

5/21/2023

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This was the gorgeous view looking to the west just 20 minutes after sunset with the whole constellation of Orion to the left and brilliant Venus to the right.

The beautiful colour of the sky is produced by the volcanic aerosols from the Hunga-Tonga volcano that erupted in the pacific islands of Tonga back in January 2022…Wow, it’s still up there in the atmosphere after all this time!

Image was taken at my Stardust Observatory at Leyburn with a Canon 70D camera and an 18-400mm Tamron lens on a tripod; exposure time was 8 seconds and ISO400.

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~ Wow! Some very active prominences on the Sun in (Ha)~

5/12/2023

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It was very exciting observing the Sun late yesterday afternoon, as there were some very large active prominences around the solar limb.

The one on the northern limb was very fine and looked like it may take off and detach, the other two on the western limb were starting to interact with one another and connect.

And to make it more interesting there was another very large active prominence showing itself on the eastern limb…There was also a lot flaring around those two large sunspots AR3296 & AR329 on the solar surface Wow, it’s all very exciting now as we head toward solar maximum!

The images were captured with a Lunt 60mm solar scope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens attached. 20 images were captured one set for the solar disc and one set for the faint prominences and combined in PS CS4.

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~ The Sun today with active sunspots AR3297 & AR3294 8th May 2023 ~

5/8/2023

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It was such a beautiful clear day here today that I just had to take some pictures of our Sun :-)

My images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Canon 100-400mm lens with 2x tele converter, 20 images were captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.

Exposure time was 1/500th second and ISO200.

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~ Penumbral Lunar Eclipse on the 6th May 2023 at Lennox Heads NSW ~

5/6/2023

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We had a lovely clear night for this special event, it was quite interesting to see the soft shadow on the Moon as it entered into the Earths penumbra, the outer limb stayed very bright.

The eclipse began at 1.14am, with maximum at 3.22am and ending at 5.31am and visually you could not see much difference in the light on the surface of the Moon until at maximum.

I have taken an image at each phase of the eclipse for the photo montage, I used a Canon 70D camera and a Canon 100-400mm lens with a 2x tele converter attached, making a focal length of 1280mm. Multiple images were captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

This is my second eclipse in two weeks as I experienced the incredible Total Solar Eclipse on board the P&O Pacific Explorer on the 20th April at Exmouth in Western Australia….Wow, that was so amazing :-)

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Full Moon rising with Orion & Venus in dusty pink sky at Lennox Heads

5/5/2023

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We are away camping at the moment at Lennox Heads in NSW and this was the view of the full moon rising.
It was just so gorgeous like a golden orb hanging in a deep purple sky.

We are experiencing some incredible volcanic coloured skies that are just so pretty :-)

Looking to the western sky you can see the constellation of Orion going down and Venus to the lower right again in that beautiful dusty coloured sky. Images were taken with a Canon 70D camera a Tamron 18-400mm lens.

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(Ha) Sun with active sunspots AR3288 & AR3285 plus Solar Prominences

5/1/2023

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On the first day of May there were a few active prominences firing away around the limb of the sun with a nice little arch prominence to the south that was interesting to watch as it wavered in space.

There was also some solar flare activity around those active sunspots with a new one coming into view on the eastern edge, now designated AR3293.

The images were captured with a Lunt 60mm solar scope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens attached. 30 images were captured one set for the solar disc and one set for the faint prominences and combined in PS CS4.

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Planet Venus as seen in Meade 10inch LX200 SCT on 22nd May 2023

~ Venus & Orion after sunset in a glorious volcanic coloured sky ~

~ Wow! Some very active prominences on the Sun in (Ha)~

~ The Sun today with active sunspots AR3297 & AR3294 8th May 2023 ~

~ Penumbral Lunar Eclipse on the 6th May 2023 at Lennox Heads NSW ~

Full Moon rising with Orion & Venus in dusty pink sky at Lennox Heads

(Ha) Sun with active sunspots AR3288 & AR3285 plus Solar Prominences

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