~ NGC 6334 Cats Paw & NGC 6357 Lobster Nebulae in a sea of stars in the tail of Scorpius ~
 
This is a wide field star rich image around the sting area of Scorpius near the bright stars Shaula and Lesath. The Cats Paw nebula is also know as the Bear Claw nebula and is an emission nebula about 50 light years across at a distance of 5,500 light years from Earth.
 
It is one of the nearest H II regions that’s a very active stellar nursery and it really does look like a Cats Paw stamped on the sky, I can also see a little hedgehog on his back smiling at me :-)
 
British astronomer John Herschel discovered the nebula in 1837 while observing the southern skies at Cape of Good Hope in South Africa using one of the largest telescopes available at the time.
 
The other nebula close by is NGC 6357 known as the Lobster Nebula or War and Peace nebula that is another emission nebula about 5,900 light years away, it hosts several massive young stars clusters and is a prominent star forming region with proto-stars embedded within the dark disks of gas.
 
Along with all the rich star and dust fields other stellar objects can also be seen, with the large M6 star cluster in the top left hand corner.
 
I’m really getting into discovering the Barnard dark nebulae embedded throughout the Milky Way and have marked a few on the Cats Paw image.
 
This image was taken at my Stardust Observatory in August 2023 using a Canon 6D Mark 11 camera with a Canon F2.8 70-200 lens attached. The camera was being attached to the top of a tracking Meade LX200 10inch telescope.

~ Super Moons beautiful ‘Glitter Path’ reflected on Tranquillity Lake ~

This was the beautiful view of the rising full super moon on our lake with its very long glitter path that was shimmering its moonlight all the way to touch me…Wow!
 
A super moon is just a term to reflect that it’s closer to Earth in its orbit than usual, we are lucky enough to have two super Moons this month with another full Moon on the 31st August.  This second full Moon is called a blue Moon as two full moons in a month only happen once in a blue Moon.
 
It's nice to see we are having a bit of fun with astronomy.
 
The Stardust Junior Astronomy Club kids just loved learning all about the Super and Blue Moon this month with there astronomy session, they will be on the lookout for all the different phases to enjoy.
 
 
Image taken with a Canon G7x Mark11 camera on manual focus, one-second exposure and ISO200.

This was the gorgeous view looking to the west just 20 minutes after sunset with the whole constellation of Orion to the left and brilliant Venus to the right.
 
The beautiful colour of the sky is produced by the volcanic aerosols from the Hunga-Tonga volcano that erupted in the pacific islands of Tonga back in January 2022…Wow, it’s still up there in the atmosphere after all this time!
 
Image was taken at my Stardust Observatory at Leyburn with a Canon 70D camera and an 18-400mm Tamron lens on a tripod; exposure time was 8 seconds and ISO400.

We are away camping at the moment at Lennox Heads in NSW and this was the view of the full moon rising.
It was just so gorgeous like a golden orb hanging in a deep purple sky.  

We are experiencing some incredible volcanic coloured skies that are just so pretty :-)
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Looking to the western sky you can see the constellation of Orion going down and Venus to the lower right again in that beautiful dusty coloured sky. Images were taken with a Canon 70D camera a Tamron 18-400mm lens.

~ Coloured Sky ~
 
I got a call from my astro friend Tara Williams from Pottsville in NSW to go look outside and look at the sky…Oh Wow, this is what I saw the whole sky was this stunning purple and pink colour, thank you Tara it was awesome!
 
You can also see the constellation of Orion going down in the western sky with the brilliant planet Venus in the lower right of the picture.
 
The colour is produced by fine particles high up in the atmosphere from the Hunga-Tonga eruption that happened back in January 2022. It’s very unpredictable as it comes and goes and can only be seen for about 20 minutes before sunrise or 20 minutes after sunset.
 
Image taken with a Canon Power Shot G7X Mark 11 camera on manual focus that was hand held, with an exposure of 1second and ISO200 :-)

​I was so lucky to get a window seat on our flight back from Perth to Brisbane on the 22nd April 2023.
 
Looking out the window at sunset I saw this gorgeous view while we were at 30,000ft or 11,000 meters, you can still see those stunning colours from the volcanic aerosols in the atmosphere!
 
As it got darker, you could see a tiny 2 day old crescent Moon with the planet Venus above, it was a bit tricky to get the photo’s but I put a blanket over my head to try and get rid of the reflections from the down lights on the plane…. and it worked, the colours were very vivid…Amazing!
 
Images were taken with a Canon G7 x Mark11 camera on manual focus at infinity. I’m on our way back from the incredible Solar Eclipse Cruise on the P&O Pacific Explorer :-)

After all the excitement of the total eclipse of the Sun this was the stunning sunset taken from the ships deck after sunset on the 20th April 2023.
 
I could not believe that those volcanic coloured aerosols were still in the atmosphere on the other side of our country…but of course they would be because they are high up in the stratosphere!
 
Image taken with a Canon G7x camera on manual focus on board the P&O Pacific Explorer cruising away from Exmouth in the Indian Ocean on our way back to the Port of Fremantle.

I’ve also taken a movie of the whole western horizon showing the beautiful colours in the western sky, you will hear a friend of mine relating his and his wife’s experience of when the Hunga-Tonga volcano erupted back in January 2022.

I wasn’t really sure what these shimmering undulating bands of light were running along the ships deck just a few minutes before totality, but I did think they might have been those rare shadow bands that I’ve read about during a solar eclipse.
 
Thank goodness I had my camera with me and was able to capture a short movie as I hurried back to my setup on the back deck. They were quite mesmerising and I will never forget that strange pulsating shimmering light…I hope you enjoy the movie!

To read more about these fleeting shadow bands please go to the links below:
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https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/exploring-shadow-bands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_bands
https://www.strickling.net/shadowbands.htm

​We were on our flight from Brisbane to Perth to view the solar eclipse at Exmouth when I looked over toward the window and saw this beautiful sunset.
 
I asked the passenger if I could please take some images and this is what I got. I took many images to make sure it wasn’t an artefact with the window or Sun reflections but yes; it’s there in every image so it’s real. Just one of those strange optical illusions that you get when you’re flying high up in the sky.

​I think it may be called a letterbox sunset :-)
 
Isn't flight just amazing, in just over five hours you can go from Brisbane to Perth with a flying distance of 3600km right across Australia from east to west…incredible!

​I drove up to Mt Tamborine to try and capture an image of Mercury low on the western horizon just after sunset and… Oh Wow, what a wonderful sight it was to see with all the stunning colours of sunset and the fine volcanic particles producing these incredible pink crepuscular rays right across the horizon.
 
As it got darker, I also captured Venus close to the Pleiades star cluster; it was such an awesome evening :-)
 
My images were taken on the 11th April 2023 with a Canon 70D camera and a Tamron 18-400mm lens on a tripod.