Category: - My Stardust Observatory

~ Golden Moonlight glitters on the water 8th September 2025 ~

9/8/2025

Tonight looked absolutely beautiful with the golden moonlight being reflected on the water as the Moon was rising, just 12 hours previously in the early morning there was a partial eclipse of the Moon.

I was unable to take any pictures of the eclipse, as the sky was cloudy, this lovely view makes up for it :-)

My image was taken with Canon 70D camera and a 28-400mm Tamron lens on a tripod; exposure time was 3 seconds, ISO200.

~ September ‘Full Moon’ also know as a Corn Moon 7th September 2025 ~

9/7/2025

We had a lovely clear evening for moonrise, I took a lovely wide field image of the full Moon rising with the pretty pink and blue colours know as the Belt of Venus.

Once it got dark enough I took some more images with the Seestar S50 telescope, this full Moon in September is referred to as the ‘Corn Moon’ or sometimes if it’s close to the equinox date as the Harvest Moon.

Tonight’s full Moon will be a total eclipse of the Moon, but with my position here on the east coast of Australia we will only see a partial eclipse at 3.30am and finishing at 4.30am in the early morning of the 8th September 2025.

Footnote: I woke up to view the partial lunar eclipse, but only got a glimpse of it through heavy cloud, then it was gone completely, Oh well I tried :-)

~ The active Sun with sunspot AR 4191 on 25th August 2025 ~

8/25/2025

Sunspot AR4191 is growing larger very quickly, there is also a lot of solar activity happening on the eastern limb with more sunspots and active prominences rotating into view.

The (Ha) image was taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x barlow lens attached. The white light images were taken with a Seestar S50 telescope and attached solar filter.

~ Venus & Jupiter in a beautiful coloured dawn sky 17th August 2025 ~

8/17/2025

Oh my! It was just so beautiful this morning with the planets Venus and Jupiter close together among the stars of Gemini rising in the beautiful pastel colours of the dawn sky; it was just so calm and peaceful :-)

My image was taken with Canon G7X Mark 11 camera set on manual focus with 1 second exposure and ISO 2000.

~ Large grouping of Sunspots on western limb the Sun 19th July 2025 ~

7/19/2025

~ Large Sunspot Groups ~

There’s a large grouping of sunspots on the western limb of the Sun that should put on quite a show for us over the next couple of day in a (Ha) solar telescope as each one of them rotate around the edge of the Sun.

(Ha) Image was taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope and the white light images were taken with a Seestar S50 with the attached solar filter.

~ Large Prominence on north eastern limb of Sun 12th July 2025 ~

7/12/2025

We had a lovely fine day today for solar viewing and what a delight to see this very delicate large prominence on the north eastern limb of the Sun.

I watched it for quite some time hoping to see if it would detach or reconnect, to my surprise it reconnected and became a Hedgerow prominence...how exciting was that!

With the monochrome image you can see the prominence just before the plasma connects and 15 minutes later the colour image shows its now reconnected back to the Sun.

Images were taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope with an attached Canon 700D camera, 20 images were captured for each set of images, one set for the solar disc and one set for the faint prominence, then stacked in RegiStax6 and combined in PS.

~ Huge Prominence on the western limb of Sun 3rd July 2025 ~

7/3/2025

What a surprise to see this huge prominence of the western limb of the Sun today with delicate sprays of plasma being ejected away from the solar surface… it was a beauty!

Images were taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope and Canon 700D camera with 2x Barlow lens attached. Two sets of images were taken with different exposure times then stacked in RegiStax6 and combined in PS.

The monochrome image is not a composite image it was just processed in PS.

~ (Ha) Sun with filaments, sunspots & prominences 26th June 2025 ~

6/26/2025

The (Ha) Sun with filaments
Sunspots AR 4117 to AR 4120 & active prominence on western limb
26th June 2025

There are some nice active features on the solar surface today in (Ha) with quite a few long dark filaments, those smaller sunspots at this stage are not very active but that little prominence on the western limb is firing away :-)

(Ha) image taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope and attached Canon 700D camera, two sets of images were obtained with different exposures.

The exposure times I used were 1/320th second with ISO 200 for the disc and 1/15th second exposure time with ISO200 for the faint filaments. 25 images were captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

The white light images were captured with the little Seestar S50 telescope and the attached solar filter, 20 images were captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

~ Huge solar prominence ejects on north western limb of the Sun ~

6/14/2025

~ Huge Prominence on Sun ~
14th June 2025

I got such a wonderful surprise today when I set up my Lunt (Ha) solar telescope to have a look at the Sun…Wow, right there before my eyes was a stunning prominence firing away on the north western limb of the Sun.

Earlier in the day I had taken some white light images with the little Seestar telescope with the attached solar filter.

The (Ha) images were taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope and a Canon 700D camera, 20 images each were captured then stacked in Registax6 and processed in PS.

This is a composite image, as you need two different timed exposures to capture the disc of the Sun and the faint prominence.

To find out what the daily Sun is doing everyday please go to the National Solar Observatory website at:
https://gong2.nso.edu/products/tableView/table.php?configFile=configs/hAlpha.cfg

Credit: NSO GONG H-Alpha data

~ The Sun our awesome Star at Helensvale Library 16th May 2025 ~

5/17/2025

Presented by Noeleen Lowndes from the Southern Astronomical Society
https://www.sas.org.au
https://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/libraries/Home

What a lovely morning I had with all the people from the Savvy Seniors group at the Helensvale Library here on the Gold Coast.

I was invited again to give a presentation on astronomy and this time because of solar activity on the Sun during this year of solar maximum; I chose to talk about our awesome Sun.

These presentations are always a lot of fun because I can show and talk about all my solar images, and then enlighten people on how important this celestial object is for life on our planet Earth.

A great day was had by all, Noeleen :-)