A  rare planetary alignment at dawn with Mercury, Venus, Waning crescent Moon, Mars, Jupiter & Saturn.
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At 5.50am on 25th June 2022 
 
This was the incredible view before dawn this morning an hour before sunrise showing all the planets with a waning crescent Moon right along the ecliptic. I wanted to try and show you some of the atmospheric colours that we’ve been experiencing in our sky by using a fisheye lens.  The colours are breathtakingly beautiful.
 
These volcanic aerosols are from the Hunga-Tonga underwater volcano that erupted in January in Tonga. I really don’t know why, but the colours are becoming more and more vivid over the last couple of days!
 
Image taken with a Canon 6D Mark11 camera and a Tokina 10-17mm fisheye lens @10mm using an 8 second exposure and ISO400. The second image taken with Sigma 10-20mm lens at 10mm, the exposure was 8 seconds and ISO1250.
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The lunar image was taken with the 18-400mm Tamron lens @400mm, ten images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS, exposures were 1/30th second and ISO100.

Today you can see a very large delicate prominence on the western limb of the Sun; it’s from a huge filament that’s been on the solar surface for the last couple of day and its now reached the edge of the limb.
 
It’s interesting to see these solar events as it shows what’s really happening when those dark filaments rotate to the edge the sun, plasma is continually being ejected from our Star, either passively or explosively as shown here!
 
When I take solar images with the Canon DSLR camera on the Monochrome setting, I’m able to capture much more delicate detail in the prominences, another thing with this setting I only have to take one image to show both the disc and prominences. Usual I have to do two sets of images at different exposures and then combined them, with this method I can get more detail on the solar surface but lose detail on the prominences. (So I’m doing it both ways now)

​I’ve also coloured the monochrome image (below) using the colourize feature in the Hue/Saturation menu in Photoshop and I think it come out quite lovely :-)

Images were taken with a Lunt solar telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens attached. To sets of images were captured one for the disc and one set for the prominences, stacked in RegiStax6 and combined in PS.

​The monochrome image is one set of 20 images stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS, exposure time was 1/40th second and ISO800.

The huge solar filament that I’ve been observing for the past week has now reached the north western limb of the Sun and will probably display some very active prominences over the next few days.
 
There is a very large active Sunspot group called AR 3038 that has doubled in size over the last 24 hours which is very unstable with a ‘beta-gamma’ magnetic field.
 
Some solar photographers that submit to Spaceweather.com have even been able to capture those elusive Ellerman bombs interactions inside this sunspot area, please see an excellent image taken by Richard N Schrantz from Nicholasvilla in the USA.
https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=185864
 
I’ve also captured some of that activity but am limited by the small 60mm aperture of my solar telescope to see the delicate detail.
 
To read more about Ellerman bombs, please go to an article called:
Multiwavelength spectropolarimetric observations of an Ellerman bomb By: R Rezaei and C Beck at: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015A%26A...582A.104R/abstract
 
I also picked up a small solar flare from new sunspot AR 3040 on the eastern side of the Sun along with some active prominences firing away.
 
My images were captured on the 22nd June and is a composite photo of two sets of images taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope with a Canon 700D camera attached tracked on a HEQ Pro mount.
 
One set of 20 images was taken of the disc with an exposure of 1/320th second and ISO200, and one set of 20 images taken for the faint prominences with and exposure of 1/15th second and ISO200. The images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed and combined in PS CS4.

The whole western sky was just glowing last night an hour after sunset with those gorgeous orange colours (yes they are back) that are being produced by the volcanic aerosols high up in our atmosphere from the Hunga-Tonga eruption.
 
I called my husband out into the cold night to have a look and he just went Wow! You can see clearly the stars through this material, so the aerosols must be very fine particles!
 
Congratulations to Peter Lowenstein from Mutare, Zimbabwe for making up a beautiful slideshow of his volcanic images and sharing them on Spaceweather. The link to see Peter’s images can be found here at:
https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=185955
 
I’ve only been taking these volcanic sky pictures since March, because in January and February we had dreadful weather here in Queensland with flooding rainfall.
 
These images were taken on the 22nd June 2022 with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens @18mm with a 2.5 second exposure for 1st image at 6.00pm and 2nd image at 6.07pm was a 10 second exposure, both images ISO200.

This was such a lovely change to see pretty pink and purple colours in the western sky an hour after sunset. Usually the sky has a bright orange glow from those volcanic particles high up in the atmosphere, so I think maybe the cloud is making a difference in the way the suns light is being refracted by the aerosols.
 
It doesn’t really matter, because the colour is just so pretty :-)
 
My image was taken at 6.00pm with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens set at 18 mm. The exposure time was 8 seconds with ISO200.

It was a bit of a challenge getting photos of the Sun today as there was a lot of cloud in the sky, but I did it…that long Filament was just huge and those prominences on the limb looked spectacular.
 
Information on Spaceweather.com states its over 370,000 km long…Wow! The monochrome image is just 20 single images stacked in RegiStax6; it shows the delicate prominences in much more detail than the colour images…
 
My photos were taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope and a Canon 700D with a 2x Barlow lens attached. Two sets of images were captured at different exposures and stacked in RegiStax6 and combined in PS. I used the monochrome setting in the camera for the black and white image.

What a difference to see the Sun in a different wavelength of light. I know a lot of people cannot afford a dedicated (Ha) solar telescope but it’s just mind-blowing how much more activity and surface detail you can see with one of these specialised telescope.  I could not afford a new one, so I took the risk and brought a second hand one and I’ve not been happier :-D
 
Yesterday I posted a white light image and all you can see are just the Sunspots on the surface of the Sun with no activity.
 
My Lunt solar telescope is only 60mm in aperture, but the solar view is truly awesome...the Sun is one of those astronomical objects that can change in real time while your observing it, and that’s extremely exciting to see.
 
The (Ha) images were two sets of 20 images each, one set for the solar disc at 1/320th second exposures and ISO200 & the other set for the faint prominences at 1/15th second and ISO200.
 
All the images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed and combined in PS. The monochrome image is not combined just 25 images stacked with exposure of 1/30th second and ISO800, you can see a lot more detail in the prominences with this image as it’s not a composite photo.

There was a sprinkling of small Sunspots all over the surface of the Sun late yesterday afternoon at 4pm. I’ve also taken some (Ha) images with my Lunt solar scope and will post soon)
 
This image was taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens with a 2x teleconverter attached making a focal length of 1280mm. The lens was fitted with a glass solar filter for safe imaging of the Sun.
 
DANGER: Please do not look at the Sun with your camera lens or telescope without a properly fitted solar filter on the objective!
 
Twenty images were captured with an exposure time of 1/400th second and ISO 200, then they were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

Dawn Planets…Wow!
 
Oh Wow...what a magnificent sight it was before dawn this morning, with all the planets lined up on the ecliptic. You can clearly see little Mercury low on the horizon; I had to twist the camera and myself around to go high up the sky at the zenith near the palm trees to capture Saturn but Yay! I got it :-D
 
Those stunning colours are from the fine volcanic aerosols high up in our atmosphere from the Hunga-Tonga eruption that happened last January…. the first image was taken an hour before sunrise at 5.35am and the second image at 5.50am, 45 minutes before sunrise, this is when the colours are at there most vibrant.
 
My first image was taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tokina 11-16mm lens @15mm; the exposure was 10 seconds and ISO400. The second image was taken with a Tokina 10-17mm fisheye lens @10mm with an exposure of 8 seconds and ISO200.

~ I used a fisheye lens so I could capture all the planets right up to the zenith on the ecliptic  ~

I woke up very early this morning and jumped straight out of bed, looked out my bedroom window and saw Venus shining brilliantly in the predawn sky. It was embedded in that volcanic dawn sky with all those incredible colours…. I was so excited :-D
 
At 5.30am here in Australia it’s still quite dark as it’s winter time, but all around and up the eastern horizon in a high broad halo you could see that gorgeous deep orange glow from these volcanic particles that are high up in our atmosphere…. it was just stunning! I also took one image of Venus reflecting on the water and a bit lower down in the picture you can just make out the elusive planet Mercury.
 
My images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens set on 18mm with ISO 200 and numerous exposures times.
 
*** Tara Williams from NSW *** In answer to your question from yesterday on Spaceweather.com: I did notice that this coloured twilight glow is extending right around the horizon, but it’s ever so faint in the western sky…now that’s very interesting!
 
Thank you for asking that question, as I would never have thought about looking in the opposite direction. I’m also capturing ripples in my images even through the sky is perfectly clear, another interesting observation!!!
 
Maybe we can blame this very unusual cold weather on these volcanic particles too ; -)

The video below was taken with my Canon 70D camera at 6.16am just 20 minutes before sunrise. The golden colours were magnificent just like liquid gold; you can still make out bright Venus in the eastern sky.
~ It was breathtakingly beautiful ~