My Stardust Observatory
  • Home
  • Introduction
  • Astro Blog
  • Education
    • NASA's Saturn Observation Campaign
    • Stardust Astronomy Club
  • Space Lego
  • Astro Links
  • Astro Events
  • Contact Me

~ Moody Moonrise on the 26th October 2018 ~

10/26/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
I was just heading upstairs to take a shower when I looked out the bedroom window and saw this beautiful dark orange Moon rising and being enveloped by dark clouds racing across its surface…. Wow, it looked stunning!
 
I ran as fast as I could downstairs to grab my camera and take some images before it disappeared, I only had time to hand hold the camera on top of the pool fence, but I managed to capture a couple of lovely images.
 
There is no processing here, the colour is real the only thing I did was crop the image. I used a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400 mm lens at 400mm, ISO400 and a 1/15th time exposure.
 
The Moon is just one day after full moon and the view is as seen from the Southern Hemisphere here in the land down under in Australia :-)
0 Comments

~ Stormy weather on the Gold Coast stops the GC600 Supercar race ~

10/21/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Severe thunderstorms hit the Gold Coast...its as black as anything on the racetrack in Surfers Paradise!
We had severe thunderstorms hit our area yesterday that not only sent the GC600 Supercar race in Surfers Paradise into utter chaos, but also produced some incredible weather!
 
First of all, it was nearly as dark as night in the afternoon when the storm hit with lightning and hail, then in the west it cleared enough for the light of the Sun to shine through in a small narrow band which produced this eerie bright light in the east which only lit up a path where the houses were across the waterway.
 
Then a glorious rainbow came out which was reflected in the water, then the whole sky turned a pretty salmon colour…it was all very exciting for me, but not so for all the racing car drivers and fans on the racetrack!
 
Images were taken on Sunday the 21st October 2018 with a Canon 70D camera and a 18-400mm Tamron lens with ISO 100 and mostly 1/100th second exposures.
Picture
~ Magnificent Rainbow after the storms ~
0 Comments

~ SAS members show beauty of Moon for InOMN on 20th Oct 2018 ~

10/20/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
~ SAS members group photo before event which was held at Tamborine in Qld Australia ~
SAS website at: http://sas.org.au
PictureMy scope with image of Moon
It was really a lovely evening for this year’s International Observe the Moon night with many families coming along to enjoy their first view of the Moon through our member’s telescopes. Bryan even arranged for the ISS to make a pass over, how cool was that :-)
 
For the first time, I decided to use my little ZWO ASI 120 MC-S one shot colour camera with the Meade 8inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope for a live view of the Moon. Then all I had to do was use the hand controller to slew up and down the terminator line to show people the different features on the lunar surface on the laptop…everyone really enjoyed this.
 
We had a 10-day-old Moon, so the large crater Copernicus was fully on show along with Gassendi crater which was right on the terminator line showing sunrise on the crater edge and sunlit mountain peaks inside the crater. A few people even used there smart phones to take pictures of the Moon from my cameras live view screen and laptop, which I’m sure went straight onto there Facebook pages.
 
Please see some pictures from the event including an image I took of the full disc of the 10-day-old Moon. By the time I got around to taking the Moons image through the telescope dew and light cloud had arrived, so the image isn’t perfect, 
​but we were very lucky indeed to have a clear night for InOMN 2018 :-)

~ International Space Station (ISS) Passover at 7.19pm on the 20th October 2018 during InOMN ~
​Images taken with a Canon 70D camera with a 10-17mm Tokina fisheye lens, movie made in windows moviemaker.

Picture
Picture
Picture
If you attended this InOMN event, then please download your participation certificate, the website is at:
​ https://moon.nasa.gov/resources/365/2018-observe-the-moon-night-certificate-of-participation/
0 Comments

~ Colourful Venus ~

10/5/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
The brilliant planet Venus is still very prominent in our western sky at twilight but it’s now shimmering all the colours of the rainbow as its light is being refracted through particles in our Earths atmosphere.
 
While trying to take this image with a planetary camera it was wobbling all over the place and scintillating with colour. I managed to get a 2-minute AVI movie still enough to stack for this image to show some of the pretty colours…but I’ll definitely be keeping all the other videos of Venus as the planet looked so fascinating!
 
Images were taken with a Meade 10inch LX200 telescope at prime focus and a ZWO ASI 120 MC-S colour camera with a 3x Barlow attached. AVI movie files were captured and stacked and processed in RegiStax6 and PS CS4.
0 Comments

~ Phases of Venus during August, September and October 2018 ~

10/4/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
It’s quite amazing to see the difference in size of Venus as it goes from a smaller first quarter Venus (like our Moon) at greatest elongation from the Sun, to a huge crescent phase which is now on show low in the western sky, this is the first time I’ve been able to capture this phenomenon with Venus :-)
 
When Venus is at a small crescent phase like now, it’s actually closer to Earth in its orbit and that is why it’s so much larger as seen through the eyepiece of the telescope. Venus is also an inferior planet and is inside of the Earths orbit, so you will never see Venus crossing the night-time sky like Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
 
Venus stays quite close to the Sun on the ecliptic and sometimes is the brightness object in the night sky. It’s also known as the morning or evening star because of its brightness and beauty.
 
If you would like to know more about Venus please go to NASA’s website at:
https://www.nasa.gov/venus
 
Information on my images: I used the same equipment and camera settings for all of the pictures and they are all to scale in relation to size. The montage of images were taken on the 12th August, 10th September and 2nd October 2018 with a Meade 10inch LX200 telescope and a ZWO ASI 120 MC-S colour camera with a 3x Barlow attached. AVI movie files were captured and then processed in RegiStax6 and PS CS4.
0 Comments

    Author

    I just love being under the heavens, come on a journey with me and I’ll share some of the amazing wonders of the Universe with you. Noeleen :-)

    Picture

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    November 2012
    October 2012

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Annular Eclipse
    Astronomy Event
    Canon Camera And Lens
    Comets
    Deep Sky Object
    Education
    Equipment
    Lunar Eclipse
    Moon
    Observatory
    Planets
    Seestar S50
    Seestar Sun
    Sky Phenomena
    Software
    Solar Filter And Camera Lens
    Solar Telescope
    Sun And Sunspots
    Total Solar Eclipse
    Travel

Picture
For all current observations of the night sky please go to my Astro Blog:
http://www.mystardustobservatory.com/astro-blog

​
​Copyright information: 

You are welcome to use my images for educational and private use, please credit me.
If you need higher resolution images then please contact me on my contact page, thank you.