Category: - My Stardust Observatory

~ Saturn & Mars rising in eastern sky at dawn on 8th May 2026 ~

5/8/2026

~ Saturn & Mars at Dawn ~

Oh my! The dawn sky this morning was just so beautiful with the planets Mars and Saturn rising in the east and the stunning colours of the dawn sky :-)

Image was taken with a Canon 70D camera and Tamron 18-400mm lens, ISO400 with 1-second exposure time. The star chart is from my favourite FREE App called Stellarium.

~ Full Flower Moon on the 2nd May 2026 ~

5/2/2026

~ Full Flower Moon on the 2nd May 2026 ~

In Remembrance of my dear Mother 1937 to 2026
~ Forever loved ~

My dear precious mother has passed away and this beautiful full Moon in the month of May is called the Flower Moon, I dedicate this picture of the Moon to my loving mother, love you forever Xxx

~ Close encounter of Venus & new crescent Moon on 19th April 2026 ~

4/20/2026

I only just got this image of the thin 2-day-old crescent Moon and Venus with the pretty sunset colours in the western sky. I was out on the footpath with my camera and tripod taking these images and showing all the people who were walking their dogs :-D

My images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and Tamron 18-400mm lens on a tripod, with ISO 400; exposure times were 1/6th & 1/8th second. The video was captured in movie mode.

~ Total Lunar Eclipse on Crown Princess Cruise ship 3rd March 2026 ~

3/3/2026

~ Single image on moving ship with Canon 70D camera & 70-400mm Tamron lens ~

~ Total Lunar Eclipse in Leo (The Lion) ~

We are cruising up the Queensland coastline on board the Crown Princess and even though it started out cloudy for the lunar eclipse the clouds parted just before totality and Wow!

The fully eclipsed Moon looked just awesome on the top deck of the ship. The ship was moving quite a lot so I had to take many images and Yay!

I managed to get a few that were in focus, I’ve also included an image of what most of my pictures looked like.

But it’s not easy taking astronomy images on board a moving ship….but where there’s a will, there is always a way :-)

We have just been cruising up and down the Queensland coast near the Great Barrier Reef for the last couple of days trying to dodge a cyclone which has now just crossed the coast near Cairns; the Captain has done a fantastic job of keeping us all safe on board the ship.

My lunar images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and Tamron 28-400mm lens attached to a tripod; the wide field was taken with a Canon G7x camera on the top deck of Crown Princess.

~ Total Lunar Eclipse in Leo (The Lion) on Crown Princess Cruise Ship on 3rd March 2026 ~

~ A beautiful solar halo around the Sun on 9th February 2026 ~

2/9/2026

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 ;-)

~ 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.