Category: - My Stardust Observatory

~ Mars in Constellation of Cancer near Beehive open star cluster M44 ~

5/1/2025

I’m out at my Stardust Observatory for the long new Moon weekend and finally we have had a few evenings of clear sky. The red planet Mars is now in the constellation of Cancer and moving towards the Beehive cluster also known as M44.

I’ve taken a wide field image of the planet among the stars of Cancer using Canon 70D camera with a 70-200mm Canon Lens attached to my tracking telescope in the observatory on Sunday the 28th April at 8pm.

20 x 2-minute images with corresponding dark frames were captured with ISO 1250, then stacked in Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) and processed in PS.

~ Mars taken with Meade 10” Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope ~
Mars is looking very small now in the 10inch telescope, captured the planet with a ZWO ASI 120MC planetary camera with attached 3x Barlow lens.

You can just make out the polar cap at the bottom of the planet and some dark marking can still be seen on the surface.

Information on my Stellarium App states that Mars currently is 6.70” in diameter is at 0.90% phase and its distance is now 1.40AU. Stellarium App at: https://stellarium-labs.com/stellarium-mobile-plus/

I use this FREE App all the time for my sky observation, its excellent!

~ The Beehive Star Cluster also known as (M44)& NGC 2632 ~
In the constellation of Cancer (The Crab)

This image was taken with the little Seestar S50 smart telescope when I was at my Stardust Observatory on the evening of the 28th April 2025.

I thought it would be fun to see what this little telescope could do in a really dark sky and I was most impressed! Not only does it show the subtle colours of the stars if you look closely into the image you can see a tiny spiral galaxy designation as UGC 4526, its magnitude is a remarkable 14.06…now that’s very faint.

It’s estimated that this star cluster is about 600 light years away from Earth.

For more information about the Beehive Cluster (M44) please go to the link below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_(constellation)

Credit: IAU star map of Cancer

Partial Lunar Eclipse rising on the Gold Coast in QLD 14th March 2025

3/14/2025

Woohoo!
After all the shocking weather with Cyclone Alfred we managed to have a beautiful clear evening for the partial lunar eclipse here on the Gold Coast in QLD Australia on the evening of the 14th March 2025.

I’ve viewed many lunar eclipses but this is the first time I’ve seen one in eclipse as it rises in the eastern sky, I wasn’t sure where it was going to come up and I got so excited when I saw it above the rooftops of the houses :-D

I couldn’t use my telescope because the eclipsed Moon was so low in the sky, so I used my trustee Canon 70D with Tamron 18-400mm lens with 2x teleconverter making a focal length of 1280mm.
Camera setup was on a static camera tripod.

Ten to fifteen images were captured of each phase then stacked in RegiStak6 and processed in PS.

~ Wow! Comet ATLAS (C/2024 G3) in western sky at Mt Tamborine ~

1/21/2025

We were not expecting that!

I grabbed my husband and camera and raced up to the top of Mt Tamborine to try and see if we could see the comet…. and Wow, I spotted the comets tail still in the very light twilight sky, which was amazing. As it got a little darker it came out in all its glory :-D

It was a bit smoggy from a bush fire low on the horizon, and I think that’s why the coma area of the comet was glowing a golden colour.

Images were taken between 7.30 – 8pm 20th January 2025, with a Canon 70D camera and Tamron 18-40mm lens on a tripod with exposures from a couple of seconds up to 30 seconds; ISO was from 200 to 1600.

~ Happy New Year ~ The Sun surface on the 1st January 2025

1/1/2025

~ Happy New Year to Everyone ~

It’s not the best weather here today with lots of cloud and very windy, but I wanted to capture an image of the Sun for the first day of 2025.

There are two large sunspots on the solar surface, AR 3936 is now just off the western limb and new AR 3943 is coming into full view on the eastern limb, this one looks very interesting!

Image was taken with the Seestar S50 telescope with attached solar filter, this time I’ve captured a video file for just 2 minutes and stacked it within the telescope with the stacking mode, processed in PS.

The SDO data servers at Stanford University was damaged in a flood on the 26th November 2024, since then
Dr Tony Phillips the creator of Spaceweather.com is using solar images from contributors for the Daily Sun.

For ‘New Year Day’ the 1st January 2025 my image was on display : -D

Spaceweather.com on the 1st January 2025
https://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=01&month=01&year=2025

Solar Dynamic observatory website
https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Spaceweather.com website
https://spaceweather.com/

~ Congratulations to NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Team ~

12/26/2024

Parker Solar Probe: Humanity’s Closest Encounter with the Sun
NASA news: 26th December 2024

Controllers have confirmed NASA’s mission to “touch” the Sun survived its record-breaking closest approach to the solar surface on Dec. 24, 2024.

Breaking its previous record by flying just 3.8 million miles above the surface of the Sun, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe hurtled through the solar atmosphere at a blazing 430,000 miles per hour — faster than any human-made object has ever moved. A beacon tone received in the late evening hours of Dec. 26 confirmed the spacecraft had made it through the encounter safely and is operating normally.

This pass, the first of more to come at this distance, allows the spacecraft to conduct unrivaled scientific measurements with the potential to change our understanding of the Sun.

Read more:
https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/nasas-parker-solar-probe-makes-history-with-closest-pass-to-sun/

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre
https://www.nasa.gov/goddard/

~ Solstice Sun has many Sunspots on eastern limb 21st December 2024 ~

12/21/2024

Today is the summer Solstice here in the Southern Hemisphere ‘Happy Solstice’

~ Sunspots AR 3926, 3927 & 3928 on the 21st December 2024 ~

There are a lot of very interesting small sunspots that have developed on the eastern limb of the Sun and they look to be quite active! My images were taken with a Seestar S50 telescope with attached solar filter;
twenty images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed n PS.

~ Sunspots AR 3917 & AR 3920 on surface of Sun 12th December 2024 ~

12/12/2024

Sunspot groups AR 3917 & AR 3920 are now growing larger on the surface of the Sun, my images were taken with a Seestar telescope with the attached solar filter. Twenty images were stacked in Registax6 and processed in PS.

My image was displayed as the daily Sunspot image on Spaceweather.com on the 12th December 2024 Yay! :-D
https://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=12&month=12&year=2024

For all current Space weather please go to Spaceweather.com at:
https://www.spaceweather.com

~ Jupiter in constellation of Taurus with Orion on 7th December 2024 ~

12/7/2024

We had a lovely clear evening here on the Gold Coast last night and just before I went to bed I peeked outside and saw brilliant Jupiter among the stars of Taurus (The Bull) with Orion riding above…. it looked just so lovely!

My picture may seem strange for people who live in the northern hemisphere because here in the land down under (Australia) we see these constellations rising and travelling across the sky upside down! Not only that, everything that rises in the east heads over to the northern sky…not the southern sky like it does for you :-D

Image was taken with a Canon 70D camera and Tamron 18-400mm lens, 10-second exposure with ISO1000 at 10.30pm on the 7th December 2024.

~ Large active sunspots AR3879 & AR3878 on Sun 1st November 2024 ~

11/1/2024

These two large sunspots on the eastern side of the Sun are very large and active, AR 3878 has produced another X-class solar flare :-o its second in the last two days as reported on Spaceweather.com on the 1st November 2024.

Images taken with a Seestar telescope with the attached solar filter, 20 images captured then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS. I used the 1x, 2x and then 4x feature within the telescope; it is an amazing little instrument for solar observing.

https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=01&month=11&year=2024

ANOTHER X-CLASS SOLAR FLARE, BUT NO CME: Active sunspot AR3878 erupted again on Oct. 31st (2120 UTC), producing an X2-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured a spray of hot plasma emerging from the blast site:

Photo Credit: SDO https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

~ Andromeda Galaxy (M31) 2.5 million light years away from Earth ~

10/20/2024

~ Andromeda Galaxy (M31) 2.5 million light years away from Earth image taken at my Stardust Observatory ~

For the month of October our club members came out to Leyburn to hunt down and take pictures of the magnificent Andromeda Galaxy.

I’ve decided to join in and took this image with my Canon 70D camera and Canon 70-200mm F2.8 lens. I took 35 x 2 minutes images with ISO2000 and corresponding dark frames, then stacked them in Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) and processed in PS CS4.

This is a wider field of view than with my Meade 80mm refractor telescope, as I wanted to capture some of the brighter stars around the galaxy.

Andromeda is very low in our northern sky and we only have a very limited time in the months of October and November to capture this magnificent galaxy.

To find out more about this stunning galaxy go the link below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy