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.

~ 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

~ Parade of planets in September 2024, Venus, Mars, Jupiter & Saturn with its moons Titan and Rhea  ~
(Planets to scale size)
 
September is the month for a parade of planets in the night sky, Venus is shinning brilliantly low in the west, Saturn is high up at the zenith and Jupiter and Mars are in the early morning sky.
 
I’ve made up a photomontage; the planets are real size in relation to one another as I used the same imaging setup for all objects. Venus was nearly a full phase but being very low in the sky there was a lot of turbulence.

​Mars was seen as a gibbous phase with a bright polar region but no distinct detail on surface as yet as it still too far away from us.
 
Saturn’s rings are now closing up, or I should say, the rings are nearly edge on as viewed from Earth, you can see two of the Saturnian moons Titan and Rhea in the image.
 
These images were taken at my Stardust Observatory on the first weekend in September; the sky conditions were not favourable as the atmosphere was very unsteady but I took the pictures anyway :-)
 
I used a 10inch Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, ZWO ASI120MC S Planetary camera with 3x Barlow lens attached. AVI movies were captured and stacked in Registak6 and processed in PS.

After taking images of all the planets with the Meade 10inch telescope, I attached my Canon 70D camera with a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 lens to the top of the telescope and tracked the night sky.

​I then took some wide field image of Saturn among the faint stars of Aquarius to show its position among the stars.
 
I’ve also added the image of Saturn that I took earlier in the evening through the telescope to show what you can see in the telescope…Saturn’s beautiful rings are now nearly edge on and will disappear next year as viewed from Earth.
 
This event only happens twice as Saturn orbits the Sun in its nearly 30-year orbit, so we only see the rings edge on every fourteen and a half years!

It’s Saturday the 31st August 2024 and I’m finally out at my Stardust Observatory at Leyburn for a weekend under the heavens :-)
 
The sky is perfectly clear, as I look to the western sky brilliant Venus can be seen going down low in the sunset coloured sky…it's very pretty.
 
I will try and capture an image of Venus with my Meade 10inch telescope tomorrow night but I think the turbulent might be too much with the atmospheric conditions…but I will try!
 
My image was taken with a Canon 70D camera and Tamron 18-400mm lens on a tripod at f4.5, with a 2-second exposure and ISO800 at 6.28pm.

Runaway Bay Library, Lae Drive, Runaway Bay, 4216.
27th June 2024 from 4pm – 5pm (6 to 12 year old)

Thank you to the librarians at the Runaway Bay Library for providing a safe and happy place for me to present our ‘Out of this World’ astronomy event.
 
The Stardust kids heard and learnt all about the exploration of our Solar System and how NASA is preparing with the Artemis mission for mankind to go back to the Moon.
 
We are not only just going back to the Moon for a visit but to set up a lunar base for future missions to explore the planet Mars…Wow, this is amazing stuff!
 
TO find out more about the Artemis mission and the future missions to Mars please go to the links below at:
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/artemis/
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/artemis/#Mars
 
My Astro Links page has many more links for you to discover the universe at:
https://www.mystardustobservatory.com/astro-links.html
​

~ 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!

Come with us on an educational adventure through the solar system!
 
NASA spacecrafts have visited every planet in our Solar System, now we are going back to the Moon to set up a lunar base in preparation for us to live on Mars… Wow!
 
Come to the library to hear about mankind’s next space adventure, presented by Noeleen Lowndes
Astronomy & Space educator from the Southern Astronomical Society.
 
Contact: Gold Coast Libraries
07 5667 5940

It took a lot of effort to get to this total eclipse of the Sun, traveling from Australia to the US then to Mexico, but it worth every second to get under the Moons shadow for Totality.
 
We are on board the Holland America’s cruise ship called the Koningsdam and eclipse day was just perfect with the weather. The Captain did a wonderful job of positioning the ship right under the central line of the shadow in the sea halfway between Cabo San Lucas and Mazatlán off the Mexican coast.
There were three other cruise ships out here with us all lined up under the shadow.

I set up on the Aft deck along with many hundreds of other people to view this most spectacular cosmic event in the sky, this is my fifth solar eclipse and it was the most beautiful yet with over 4 minutes of totality, its awesome beauty just went on and on as compared to just 58 seconds of totality at the Exmouth total eclipse last year in western Australia.

Images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and 100-400 mm lens at 400mm making a focal length of 640mm, I bracketed my images and captured the diamond ring image with 1/2000th second exposure, and the totality image was only 1/30th second with ISO400 which surprised me greatly!

This is the second Total Eclipse of the Sun that I’ve done from a cruise ship and it shows that you can indeed get great photographs, the ships captain goes out of their way to steady the ship and they always have great speakers on board giving astronomy and space presentations, thank you to Holland America for making this magically moment for us :-)
​
I will post more images of the partials when I get back as this ship goes on to Hawaii and then to Alaska, I’m hoping if I’m lucky to capture the northern lights…Oh Wow wouldn’t that be amazing!

​​
​~ Venus & Waning Crescent Moon in a moody pink twilight sky ~
At 5.20am on the 9th March 2024 

​I woke up at 5am and looked out my window and saw this beautiful view of brilliant Venus close to a waning crescent Moon in a pretty pink twilight sky.

​I quickly ran out of the bedroom, grabbed my camera and tripod to capture some images before the clouds came rolling in…. to my delight I managed to get some photo’s :-)
 
Images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 28-400mm lens on a tripod; the screen shot was from Stellarium Mobile planetary App…this is an excellent App and it's FREE!