The clouds are back again, but I didn’t mind at all this time because when I looked up high in the sky there in all its glory was a beautiful solar halo around the Sun.

​My image was taken with a Canon G7x Mark11 camera on manual focus…. keep looking up you never know what you’ll see ;-)

~ Sunspot AR 4366 ~

This is the first day in weeks that we’ve had a clear day, so I was very excited to get the telescope out and view this very large complex sunspot group AR 4366 on the surface of the Sun.

​ My images were taken with a Seestar S50 telescope with the attached solar filter then processed in PS.

The Helix nebula is like our own star the Sun, it has exhausted its fuel and is now expelling its outer layers, all that’s left of the original star is a dense white core that is exciting all the expelled dust and gas from the stellar remnant.
 
The Helix is approximately 650 light-years from Earth and is one of the closest planetary nebulae to Earth; it is sometimes refereed to the Eye of God due to its resemblance to a giant eye in the sky.
 
This image was taken with just the little Seestar S50mm telescope; I was at my Stardust Observatory at Leyburn in a very dark sky. The capture time was one and a half hours. Image was processed in Photoshop.
 
To find out more about this amazing object please go to Science at NASA at:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-caldwell-catalog/caldwell-63/
 
To find where the Helix Nebula is in Aquarius please go to FREE star chart:
https://freestarcharts.com/ngc-7293
​

~ Magnificent Andromeda Galaxy (M31) & it’s two satellite Galaxies M110 & M32 ~
 
This beautiful image of the magnificent Andromeda Galaxy was taken with just the little Seestar S50 telescope on the wide field setting; it’s an incredible 2.5 million light-years away from Earth!
 
If you go into the Seestar App settings you can orientate the object using the mosaic mode to fit in what you want to capture and its orientation.
 
I’m just blown away that this little telescope has captured an image like this, when I image this object usually I use my Meade 80mm refractor telescope that’s tracking on the larger Meade LX200 set up in the observatory.
 
Andromeda travels quite low in our northern sky at my observing location at 28 degrees south, I also have some high gum trees to contend with as well.
 
We have a time limit of just a couple of months as the galaxy skims low across the northern sky, November and December are the best times to capture it but by January it’s starting to descend down into the north western horizon.
 
You can still observe Andromeda in early January just after dark, but it’s now getting very low in the north western sky.
 
Images were taken with the Seestar S50mm telescope, on the new moon weekend at the end of November 2025, 2 ½ hours of images were stacked within the telescope then processed in PS. I was in a very dark sky location at my Stardust Observatory at Leyburn.
 
If you need FREE star charts of the night sky that contain so much information of the objects in those constellation then please go to freestarcharts.com at: https://freestarcharts.com/
 
Andromeda Star chart below at:
https://freestarcharts.com/andromeda
​
Messier 31
M31, also well known as the Andromeda Galaxy, is the nearest major galaxy to our own, the Milky Way.
 
Science at NASA has released incredible images of the Andromeda taken over a ten-year period with the Hubble Space telescope with links to all the new discoveries about this incredible galaxy that is much like our own. Link at:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-31/

The Andromeda galaxy holds over 1 trillion stars and has been a key to unlocking the secrets of the universe. Thanks to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, we’re now seeing Andromeda in stunning new detail, revealing its dynamic history and unique structure. Recent Hubble surveys mapped the galaxy’s entire disk—an effort spanning a decade and over 1,000 orbits—showing everything from young stars to remnants of past galactic collisions.
 
Learn how new information about Andromeda is reshaping our understanding of galactic evolution and what it reveals about the fate of our own galaxy.
 
For more information, visit https://nasa.gov/hubble.
 
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Paul Morris: Lead Producer Music Credit: “Vitava From Ma Vlast "My Country"” by Bedrich Smetana [PD] and Robert J Walsh [BMI], via First Digital Music [BMI] and Universal Production Music.

~ Happy New Year to Everyone ~
 
Here’s hoping we have lots of surprises in the skies for 2026  :-)
 
Light rain started to fall about 9pm last night for New Years Eve which dampened a few of the firework celebrations here on the Gold Coast, but I’m sure everyone still had a great time!
 
I was determined to capture a picture of the Sun today for the first day of the New Year even though there was quite a lot of cloud about; I did it, so here is the Happy New Year Sun for 2026!
 
Because I post a lot of my images on Spaceweather.com this is the greeting that went with my post today on there website for everyone, if you are interested is what the Sun is currently up to and seeing some amazing solar and night sky images this is the place to go daily at: https://spaceweather.com/
 
Happy New Year to Dr Tony Phillips and all contributors of Spaceweather.com from all over the world, I hope everybody has a wonderful year in 2026 :-)
 
My images were taken with a Seestar S50 telescope with an attached solar filter; the sky was not very good because of clouds, twenty images were captured then stacked in Registax6 and processed in PS.

~ This is just so beautiful ~

​Take a journey across space and time through the best space images of 2025, captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble, Chandra, and other powerful observatories.
 
From newborn stars hidden inside dusty nebulae to the shattered remains of supernovae, and from distant galaxies to interstellar visitors passing through our solar system, each image reveals a different chapter of the universe’s story.
 
Webb’s infrared vision, Hubble’s clarity, and Chandra’s X-ray perspective come together to show how stars form, how galaxies evolve, and how unseen forces shape the cosmos.
 
MUSIC Alignment in Grace 3 Stereo Nuts Interstellar Alignment in Grace 2
 
https://youtu.be/MRfU9RR95A4?si=jcKqr92yuffdHrg9
​

​Comet 3i/Atlas does not look much but it is very special as it's an interstellar visitor!
~ Comet 3i/Atlas next to Galaxy PGC 1318186 at closet approached to Earth ~

~ Comet 3i/Atlas next to Galaxy PGC 1318186 at closet approached to Earth ~
On 20th December 2025 in the Constellation of Leo (The Lion)
 
I was very excited to get up this morning at 2.30 am to try and capture a picture of this very intriguing comet! The weather was very humid with a bit of light cloud cover so the conditions were not the best. 
 
But this was my one and only chance to get a photo of this interstellar object at its closest approach to Earth and I was going to do my best to catch it :-)
 
I used the little Seestar S50 telescope and had no problem finding the comet, but the telescope had a bit of trouble capturing and stacking the images in the wind. I finally got about 5 minutes of images between 3.20am and 3.40am, that’s when the sky started to lighten. (It’s our summer solstice in just two days times)
 
Oh my…this comet is moving extremely fast through the star field, It was a bit confusing as there were two smudges (objects) close together on my images?
 
When I checked the Stellarium App it showed that Comet 3i/Atlas was right next to this very faint galaxy called PGC 1318186.
 
I could not find out much about this galaxy only that its co-ordinates matched where Comet 3i/Atlas was and its magnitude is 17.38.
 
* Position of Comet when taking these images * From The Sky live tracker: 
Comet 3i/ATLAS was in the constellation of Leo, at a distance of 269,111,198.1 kilometers from Earth. The current Right Ascension is 10h 52m 41s and the Declination is +06° 30' 57” (apparent coordinates). Magnitude 16.69.
​(Now that’s very faint)
 
Tracking Comet 3i/Atlas: The Sky live tracker at:
https://theskylive.com/c2025n1-tracker
 
PGC 1318186 RA/Dec 10h 45m 09.8s  +07’ 09’ 05.5”
https://in-the-sky.org/data/catalogue.php?cat=PGC

I’ve managed to follow the progression of these huge sunspot groups AR 4294 & AR 4296 for 7 days as they have rotated from the east to west on the surface of the Sun.
 
It was expected that at some time that either one of these sunspots would have released there pent up energy in the form of a solar flare or a CME, but that did not happen!
 
The eastern side of the Sun is looking very quite at the moment and I’ll now have a bit of a break from taking some solar images for a few days.
 
My images were taken with the Seestar S50mm smart telescope using the attached solar filter. Twenty images were captured, then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

For days now we have all been waiting for one of these huge sunspots to erupt when all of a sudden the smaller one AR 4299 decided to explode producing a M8 class solar flare; the Sun can do unexpected things sometimes and can be tricky :-)
 
This directed solar flare (CME) is Earth directed and should produce some beautiful auroras in the next couple of days up in the Northern Hemisphere.
 
You can keep an eye out on Spaceweather.com for more information and I’m sure there will be some beautiful images posted by contributors to the website at:
https://spaceweather.com/
 
You can also check for space weather conditions at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Centre at: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
​

Those large active sunspots are now rotating toward the centre of the Sun and could produce some powerful X-class solar flares at any moment :-o 
 
NASA X-Class: A guide to Solar Flares: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10109
 
Spaceweather.com has information on this complex sunspot group that is now facing our planet Earth at: https://spaceweather.com/
 
Images were taken with a Seestar S50 telescope with attached solar filter, twenty images captured, then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.