The Helix nebula is like our own star the Sun, it has exhausted its fuel and is now expelling its outer layers, all that’s left of the original star is a dense white core that is exciting all the expelled dust and gas from the stellar remnant.
 
The Helix is approximately 650 light-years from Earth and is one of the closest planetary nebulae to Earth; it is sometimes refereed to the Eye of God due to its resemblance to a giant eye in the sky.
 
This image was taken with just the little Seestar S50mm telescope; I was at my Stardust Observatory at Leyburn in a very dark sky. The capture time was one and a half hours. Image was processed in Photoshop.
 
To find out more about this amazing object please go to Science at NASA at:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-caldwell-catalog/caldwell-63/
 
To find where the Helix Nebula is in Aquarius please go to FREE star chart:
https://freestarcharts.com/ngc-7293
​

~ Magnificent Andromeda Galaxy (M31) & it’s two satellite Galaxies M110 & M32 ~
 
This beautiful image of the magnificent Andromeda Galaxy was taken with just the little Seestar S50 telescope on the wide field setting; it’s an incredible 2.5 million light-years away from Earth!
 
If you go into the Seestar App settings you can orientate the object using the mosaic mode to fit in what you want to capture and its orientation.
 
I’m just blown away that this little telescope has captured an image like this, when I image this object usually I use my Meade 80mm refractor telescope that’s tracking on the larger Meade LX200 set up in the observatory.
 
Andromeda travels quite low in our northern sky at my observing location at 28 degrees south, I also have some high gum trees to contend with as well.
 
We have a time limit of just a couple of months as the galaxy skims low across the northern sky, November and December are the best times to capture it but by January it’s starting to descend down into the north western horizon.
 
You can still observe Andromeda in early January just after dark, but it’s now getting very low in the north western sky.
 
Images were taken with the Seestar S50mm telescope, on the new moon weekend at the end of November 2025, 2 ½ hours of images were stacked within the telescope then processed in PS. I was in a very dark sky location at my Stardust Observatory at Leyburn.
 
If you need FREE star charts of the night sky that contain so much information of the objects in those constellation then please go to freestarcharts.com at: https://freestarcharts.com/
 
Andromeda Star chart below at:
https://freestarcharts.com/andromeda
​
Messier 31
M31, also well known as the Andromeda Galaxy, is the nearest major galaxy to our own, the Milky Way.
 
Science at NASA has released incredible images of the Andromeda taken over a ten-year period with the Hubble Space telescope with links to all the new discoveries about this incredible galaxy that is much like our own. Link at:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-31/

The Andromeda galaxy holds over 1 trillion stars and has been a key to unlocking the secrets of the universe. Thanks to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, we’re now seeing Andromeda in stunning new detail, revealing its dynamic history and unique structure. Recent Hubble surveys mapped the galaxy’s entire disk—an effort spanning a decade and over 1,000 orbits—showing everything from young stars to remnants of past galactic collisions.
 
Learn how new information about Andromeda is reshaping our understanding of galactic evolution and what it reveals about the fate of our own galaxy.
 
For more information, visit https://nasa.gov/hubble.
 
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Paul Morris: Lead Producer Music Credit: “Vitava From Ma Vlast "My Country"” by Bedrich Smetana [PD] and Robert J Walsh [BMI], via First Digital Music [BMI] and Universal Production Music.

~ 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’m out at my observatory this new moon weekend specifically to capture Saturn at opposition; the sky is just so clear and magnificent. Saturn looks so beautiful up in the night sky in the faint constellation of Pisces (The Fishes).
 
These images of Saturn were taken at opposition on the 20th September 2025 with my 10-inch Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain LX200 telescope using a ZWO ASI120 MC camera with a 3x Barlow lens attached. AVI video files were captured with 3000 frames then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.
 
You can see two of Saturn’s moon very clearly in the image, the largest moon Titan is above the thin ring and Rhea is at the tip below the ring.
 
There is an excellent App called Gas Giants that helps identify Saturn’s satellites (also Jupiter) in real time, the ZWO Seestar App also gives excellent information which I’ve include here in my blog on Saturn’s opposition.
 
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gas-giants/id397831483
 
I must say, I’m extremely happy with the detail in this image and the edge on rings in silhouette looks amazing  :-)

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!

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)

~ 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

After a whole night of observing in my observatory, I opened the door and looked to the east at the pretty dawn sky and saw a very faint smudge; I asked myself could that be the comets tail?
 
All I had with me was my little Canon G7x Mark 11 point and shoot camera so I rested it on the car bonnet and took some images…Wow, yes there it was!
 
To my delight you could clearly make out this huge faint gas tail going right up the horizon, I just wish I had come out earlier and taken some images, but that’s all right I’ve managed to capture it anyway :-)
 
This Canon camera is just amazing for night-time shots, because its lens goes down to F1.8; the settings for these photos were 5-second exposures and ISO3200. I always use manual focus for infinity that way the stars are in focus.
 
I’m at my dark sky site at my Stardust Observatory in Leyburn, QLD, Australia.

~ 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

I had three perfect nights under the stars at my Stardust Observatory at Leyburn in early September 2024.
​This is a very dark sky site in western Queensland.
 
As I process the images I’ll post them onto my website beginning with capturing the faint Cat’s Paw and Lobster nebulae in the area around the sting of Scorpius.
 
At this time of the year Scorpius and Sagittarius and the whole band of the Milky Way is at the zenith, it gives you plenty of time to take lots of images.
 
For this weekend, I decided to do just wide field images of the Milky Way using a Canon 70D camera and Canon 70-200 f2.8 lens. The camera was attached to the tracking Meade 10inch telescope that was polar aligned in the observatory.
 
Most of the images were an exposure time of 2-3 minutes and ISO2000. I captured at least 20-30 frames and also corresponding dark frames for stacking. Images were stacked in Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) and processed in PS.
 
When looking at the star rich areas of the Milky Way you come across some very dark patches among the stars. I have since found out they are called Barnard Objects after a man called Edward E Barnard who saw them as ‘holes in the heavens’.
 
They are dark nebulae where so much interstellar gas and dust obscures the light from the stars that are behind it, it’s very similar to what you see with the Coalsack Nebula near the Southern Cross (Crux).
 
I have been coming across these objects when doing wide field images of the milky way for some time now and have been intrigued by them, so from now on I’ll try and number them on my images.
 
To find out more about these dark objects please go to the Harvard Education website link: Dark Markings in the Sky
https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~agoodman/astro208/articles/Barnard.html
 
(Please note, unfortunately a lot of the links are now not in use, I’ve only included the link because it gives the general information)
 
This is another very useful and excellent website where you can download a chart to use with your images at:
https://exhibit-archive.library.gatech.edu/barnard/
​