Category: Equipment - My Stardust Observatory

~ Wow! Large active Sunspots on eastern limb of Sun ~

8/28/2025

~ Wow! Active Sun Today 28th August 2025 ~

Wow! There was such a lot of activity on the solar surface today, I finally set up the ZWO ASI 174mm camera with the Lunt solar telescope and took some pictures of those very active sunspots on the eastern limb.

I was just blown away with the detail that this little camera was able to capture and I’ll use it from now on instead of the Canon 700D DSLR :-)

(Ha) images were taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope; the close up image was with a 2x Barlow lens attached to the ZWO camera.

The white light images were taken with a Seestar S50 with its attached solar filter, 20 images stacked in Registax6 and processed in PS.

~ White light image taken with little Seestar S50 telescope and attached solar filter ~

~ Complex Sunspot AR 4197 on Sun 31st August 2025 ~

7/31/2025

The Sun shows a completely different view with a dedicated (Ha) solar telescope, it’s so exciting seeing the surface of the Sun alive and active!

There’s a really interesting sunspot group designated AR 4197, it’s very large and active and has many smaller sunspots that appear to be interconnected with each other… it’s going to be interesting to see what happens with this area in the next couple of days :-)

Images taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope and a ZWO ASI 174mm camera, I used an attached 2x Barlow lens for the close up image. AVI movies were captured with 2500 frames, then stacked in the ZWO software and processed in PS.

~ One day old crescent Moon in gum trees with Venus in western sky ~

10/4/2024

~ Tiny one day old crescent Moon between the gum trees in western sky on the 4th October 2024 ~

We arrived at my Stardust Observatory on Friday the 4th October for a long weekend under the stars. It was new Moon yesterday the 3rd October and I was on the look out for the one day old tiny crescent Moon.

At 6.30pm I found it very low in the western sky near the treetops, I had to go right back into the field to capture it and I did…Yay!

The sky is very clear and steady and it looks like it’s going to be a stunning weekend, some members from our club SAS are out here too and I’ve taken a couple of photos of them all set up on the field.
Good luck everyone tonight I hope you all get some great images :-)

These images were taken with a Canon 70D camera plus a Tamron 18-400mm lens on a tripod, using ISO800 with 1.5-second exposures.

~ SAS members getting there telescopes ready for a night under the stars at Leyburn ~
~ 4th October 2024 ~
https://www.sas.org.au

~ The Sun: Our Spectacular Star at the Runaway Bay Library ~

8/15/2024

~ The Sun: Our Spectacular Star at Runaway Bay Library ~

I had a wonderful time at the Runaway Bay Library presenting one of my lectures on our amazing star the Sun. This topic is very close to my heart as I’m an avid solar observer and I was able to share all my solar experiences with everyone who came along to the presentation.

These included showing all my images of the Sun, solar eclipses and beautiful aurora along with rare pictures of the two transits of Venus.

Everybody learnt how dynamic the Sun really is and how safely they can observe solar events themselves with the right equipment.

A great time was had by all and thanks you again to the librarians from the Runaway Bay Library who provided a safe and happy place for the event.

Please find some photos below from the evening, happy and safe solar observing, Noeleen Lowndes :-D

~ Large group of Sunspots on the solar surface 30th July 2024 ~

7/30/2024

Today there are many more sunspots on the Suns surface; activity is really firing up now with every day new sunspots developing, it’s very exciting!

White light images taken with a Seestar S50 telescope with a solar filter attached, 15 images captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

Information below is from Spaceweather.com on the 29th July 2024.
https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=29&month=07&year=2024

SOLAR ACTIVITY IS HIGH: Sunspot complex AR3765-67 is crackling with strong flares--and they're getting stronger. An impulsive X1.5 flare this morning at 0237 UT caused a deep shortwave radio blackout over Japan, southeast Asia and Australia (map).

CANNIBAL CME ALERT: A series of M-class flares over the weekend hurled multiple CMEs toward Earth. According to a NOAA model, the first two CMEs merged to form a potent Cannibal CME. Strong G3-class geomagnetic storms are possible when it reaches Earth on July 30th.

~ Mineral Full Moon rising on the 21st July 2024 ~

7/21/2024

~ Happy 55 years Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing ~

We are having some lovely clear weather at the moment and last night was just beautiful with the full Moon rising in the evening sky. I’ve taken these images with the little Seestar S50 telescope and it was just so east to set up :-)

With a bit of contrast in processing you can see the colours of the minerals on the Moon’s surface very clearly, with the brown colour being iron rich areas and blue areas being titanium rich especially around the Sea of Tranquillity.

I captured 20 images and stacked them in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

To find out more about the minerals on the Moon go to the NASA link below, this is excellent for teachers, students and anybody who has an interest in the lunar surface.
https://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/interaction/lmdp/documents/58199main_exploring_the_moon.pdf

JPL Photo Journal - PIA00131: Moon - False Color Mosaic
https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00131

Original Caption Released with Image:
This false-color mosaic was constructed from a series of 53 images taken through three spectral filters by Galileo's imaging system as the spacecraft flew over the northern regions of the Moon on December 7, 1992. The part of the Moon visible from Earth is on the left side in this view. The color mosaic shows compositional variations in parts of the Moon's northern hemisphere. Bright pinkish areas are highlands materials, such as those surrounding the oval lava-filled Crisium impact basin toward the bottom of the picture.

Blue to orange shades indicate volcanic lava flows. To the left of Crisium, the dark blue Mare Tranquillitatis is richer in titanium than the green and orange maria above it. Thin mineral-rich soils associated with relatively recent impacts are represented by light blue colors; the youngest craters have prominent blue rays extending from them. The Galileo project, whose primary mission is the exploration of the Jupiter system in 1995-97, is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL

~ Image of Sun & AR3738 taken with ZWO Seestar S50 Review ~

7/12/2024

~ The solar surface with large sunspot AR 3738 on the 12th July 2024 ~
Images taken with SeeStar telescope with solar filter

Oh my, I took my first images of the Sun with the little ZWO ‘Seestar S50’ smart telescope and all I can say is Wow!

The detail on the surface of the Sun (with attached solar filter) is quite amazing for such a small instrument;
you can also zoom in to 2x & 4x as shown with AR 3738 in the image posted.

I’m comparing this to a 80mm or 127mm refractor! Not only are the sunspots more detailed, within just a few minutes the unit had found the Sun and I was taking images without all the work of aligning a telescope mount and attaching a camera.

But there is a down side to this little telescope; the captured images are very small file sizes at only on average 100 KB (1920 x 1080) resolution, which is a shame.

I had to download the JPG images from the iPhone to the computer, then did my normal processing of stacking 15 images in RegiStax6 and processing them in PS. (I’ll also need to learn how to capture a AVI movie file)

Will I use it again to take pictures of the Sun, you bet I will because of the clear detail it shows on the solar surface, its portability and quick setup time.

It’s a little beauty and will add greatly to my love of observing our Sun in white light :-)

The little ZWO Seestar S50 with included solar filter attached ~

~ The (Ha) Sun with active prominences, filaments and sunspots ~

6/28/2024

With the (Ha) solar scope there was a lovely arch prominence firing away on the lower eastern limb of the Sun late this afternoon with quite a few wispy prominences all around the whole solar limb.

In the little white light refractor telescope you could see a completely different view with lots of small sunspots sprinkled across the solar surface. Sunspot AR 3727 & AR 3719 that are at opposite sides of the Sun look like twins as they are the same size and shape as one another…. quite surprising to see two sunspots that look so alike!

The white light image was taken with Orion 80mm refractor telescope with glass solar filter attached and a Canon 700D camera plus 2x Barlow lens. The Ha images were taken with a Lunt 60mm solar telescope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens.

~ The Sun sprinkled with many sunspots of the 28th June 2024 ~

~ Imaging equipment (Ha) Lunt solar telescope & Orion 80mm refractor with Canon 700D plus 2x barlow lens ~

~ Starry Starry Night with Savvy Seniors at Helensvale Library ~

6/21/2024

~ Starry Starry Night with Savvy Seniors at Helensvale Library ~
21st June 2024 from 10.30 to 11.30 am

Helensvale Library
62 Sir John Overall Drive
Helensvale 4212

Presented by Noeleen Lowndes from the Southern Astronomical Society.

On Friday the 21st June, I had a lovely morning with the Savvy Seniors at the Helensvale Library giving them an Astronomy and Space presentation.

I’m pretty sure everyone will get their star charts and planetary Apps out over the next month and see what they can find in the night sky.

Thank you to Cathie the Helensvale librarian for inviting me to share my love of the night sky with your patrons :-)

To help you on your way in discovering the Cosmo please go to my Astro Links page at: https://www.mystardustobservatory.com/astro-links.html

FREE Star Charts at Sky Maps.com
*** Please check your latitude and download the current Sky Map ***
(e.g. I’m in the Southern Hemisphere so that is the star chart I download)
https://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html

The planetary Apps to find your way around the night sky are:
Sky Chart and Stellarium download both Apps for Free from the App store.

To find out more about this very friendly group of people
please see the details below with the link to the Gold Coast Libraries website.

https://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/libraries/Whats-on/Savvy-Seniors-858613695677
NOTE: No need to book, just drop by on the third Friday of each month and enjoy!

~ Yay! I’m finally unpacking my new ZWO Seestar S50 telescope ~

6/18/2024

I cannot believe that I’ve left this little telescope in the box since Christmas time, but after going along to our last club meeting at SAS, and seeing all the wonderful images that some members have taken,
I finally decided to get it out of the box :-)

I’ve got so used to using my solar setups that I didn’t think it would be up to much, I’m particularly interesting in using it to take white light images of the Sun and having the solar filter included in a real bonus!

Anyway, after getting it outside and playing around with it for quite a while I couldn’t even get it to find the Sun! Oops must be doing something wrong will get back to you soon….

It’s going to be interesting to compare the two solar setups when I get it working properly :-)