~ Spotless Sun ~
 
Yay! Finally after a couple of days of cloudy weather the clouds parted late this afternoon and I could capture a picture of our spotless Sun.
 
Its been four years now since we’ve seen a smooth unblemished surface on the face of the Sun, but I’m sure it’s not going to last for very long as this active cycle has not finished yet by a long shot!

​Image taken with a SeestarS50 telescope with the attached solar filter and processed in PS.

​THE SUN IS FLATLINING: With no sunspots actively flaring, the sun's X-ray output has flatlined. The quiet is likely to continue for at least another 24 hours. NOAA forecasters say there is no more than a 1% chance of M- or X-class solar flares on Feb. 24th. Aurora alerts: SMS Text
WHERE HAVE ALL THE SUNSPOTS GONE? Click on this image and take a careful look around the solar disk. Can you find any sunspots? We can't either
 
 
This week has brought the first "spotless days" since 2022. So far, Feb. 22nd and Feb. 23rd have had completely blank suns. There have been no sunspots on the solar disk, breaking an uninterrupted 4 years of non-stop sunspot activity.
What does this mean? It's an early warning of Solar Minimum, the low point of the 11-year solar cycle. During years around Solar Minimum, whole months can go by without a single sunspot, racking up dozens of spotless days in a row. Between 2018 and 2020 (the last Solar Minimum) there were more than 700 spotless days in total. You can find the daily counts right here on Spaceweather.com.
 
Solar Cycle 25 still has years of life left in it. However, these spotless days tell us that the current cycle is waning. Sunspots will be back--probably tomorrow--but today is a preview of things to come.

https://www.spaceweather.com

~ 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.

~ (Perigee) Super Full Moon on the 5th December 2025 ~
 
The full Moon was a lovely golden colour as it was rising low in the north eastern sky on the 5th December 2025.
 
In the northern hemisphere this is called a ‘Cold Moon’ but when you have over 34 degree heat here in SE Queensland at this time of the year, I’d like to call it a ‘Hot Hot Moon ‘  ;-)
 
Taking images a few hours later when it was a lot higher in the sky it now shows its usual silvery colour on the surface.
 
Over the last few months we’ve had a lot of Perigee Full Moons, where our lunar companion has been closer to our planet from January this will start to reverse and the Moon in its orbit will be further away heading toward Apogee (furthest point)
 
There is approximately a 50,000 km distance that the Moon can orbit away from our planet either being closer or further away but because of gravity it will always be best buddies with Earth as we orbit together in space around the Sun :-)
 
Images were taken with a Seestar S50mm telescope capturing 20 images and stacking them in RegiStax6 and process in PS.

~ Jupiter with coloured Belts & Zones, festoons & bright white oval on 24th November 2025 ~
 
Jupiter will be at opposition with our planet on the 10th January 2026, the planet can be found at the moment in the constellation of Gemini (The Twins).
 
This image was taken on the last new Moon weekend at the end of November and it shows quite a lot of detail as our two planets come closer together in the night sky.
 
The image shows the prominent coloured belts (dark bands) and zones (lighter bands) with some lovely dark blue festoons and a bright white oval spot on the North Equatorial Belt. This image is on the opposite side of Jupiter to its GRS (Great Red Spot).
 
This is the best time now to grab your telescope to view this magnificent planet and take some images, the bigger the aperture of your telescope the clearer the view of the planet.
 
The image was taken with a Meade LX200 10 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain in my Stardust Observatory at Leyburn, using a ZWO ASI120 MC camera with a 3x Barlow attached. AVI movies were captured with 3000 frames. The frames were then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

In between severe thunderstorms out at my observatory, I was able to capture this rare event where Saturn’s rings were so thin that they nearly disappeared completely from view!
 
This is a rare celestial event that only happens approximately every 15 years as Earth crosses through the ring plane of Saturn, that is why we see the rings so thin and are viewed edge on from our position here on planet Earth.
 
But this is only an illusion as Saturn’s beautiful rings are still there in all there glory but we just cannot see them from Earth.
 
Galileo Galilei was perplexed when in 1612 he looked at Saturn and its beautiful rings had disappeared this is what he stated in his notes!
 
"I do not know what to say in a case so surprising, so unlooked for and so novel." announced Galileo when Saturn's rings appeared to vanish in 1612.
Read more at: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap950801.html
 
More interesting information on Saturn’s ring plane crossings from NASA:
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-views-saturn-ring-plane-crossing/
 
My images were taken with a 10inch LX200 Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and ZWO ASI120 Mc planetary camera with 3xbarlow attached. AVI files were captured with 3000 frames that were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.
 
The sky conditions were not ideal with quite a lot of water moisture in the air,
but I managed to capture some AVI files :-)

I only just managed to get this image of the full Moon this evening before thunderstorms rolled in. This full Moon in November is also a Perigee Moon, which means it’s a Super Moon and is closer to the Earth in its orbit.
 
My images were taken with a Seestar S50 telescope, 20 images were captured then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS, please note that the image is not as sharp because of cloud in the sky but at least I captured it :-D
 
To read more about the science behind Super moons please go to Science at NASA website at: https://science.nasa.gov/moon/supermoons/
​

Oh my! What a beautiful sight it was to see the (Perigee) Super Moon rising in the evening sky.
 
At the moment there’s a lot of aerosols in our sky because of many bush fires and dust, which is why the full Moon low on the horizon looks this beautiful rustic red colour :-)

​A few hours later at 9 pm when the Moon was high up in the sky it was it’s normal colour.
 
I was quite surprised to see that the Seestar S50 telescope picked up the beautiful red colour of the Moon, 25 images were captured for both shots then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.