Category: Travel - My Stardust Observatory

~ Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN) low in western sky 21st September 2025 ~

9/21/2025

I managed to quickly set up the little Seestar S50 telescope just outside our cabin in town and capture this stunning comet low in the western sky.

It was not ideal conditions because of all the lights from the local hotel that was across the road…but I took the chance and I caught myself a beautiful comet :-)

I love the pretty green colour of the coma and its long delicate flyaway tail that stretched right up the sky. Images taken with a Seestar S50 telescope four images were stacked in DSS and very lightly processed in PS, the pretty green colour in the image is natural.

There is an excellent article from the UNSW in Australia that explains why comets heads are green by chemist Professor Timothy Schmidt, the link is at: https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2021/12/comets--heads-can-be-green--but-never-their-tails--after-90-year

~ Saturn at opposition in 2025 with its moons Titan and Rhea ~

9/21/2025

~ Gas Giants App ~

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 :-)

~ The Sun our awesome Star at Helensvale Library 16th May 2025 ~

5/17/2025

Presented by Noeleen Lowndes from the Southern Astronomical Society
https://www.sas.org.au
https://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/libraries/Home

What a lovely morning I had with all the people from the Savvy Seniors group at the Helensvale Library here on the Gold Coast.

I was invited again to give a presentation on astronomy and this time because of solar activity on the Sun during this year of solar maximum; I chose to talk about our awesome Sun.

These presentations are always a lot of fun because I can show and talk about all my solar images, and then enlighten people on how important this celestial object is for life on our planet Earth.

A great day was had by all, Noeleen :-)

~ Mars in Constellation of Cancer near Beehive open star cluster M44 ~

5/1/2025

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!

~ The Beehive Star Cluster also known as (M44)& NGC 2632 ~
In the constellation of Cancer (The Crab)

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)

Credit: IAU star map of Cancer

~ Wow! Comet ATLAS (C/2024 G3) in western sky at Mt Tamborine ~

1/21/2025

We were not expecting that!

I grabbed my husband and camera and raced up to the top of Mt Tamborine to try and see if we could see the comet…. and Wow, I spotted the comets tail still in the very light twilight sky, which was amazing. As it got a little darker it came out in all its glory :-D

It was a bit smoggy from a bush fire low on the horizon, and I think that’s why the coma area of the comet was glowing a golden colour.

Images were taken between 7.30 – 8pm 20th January 2025, with a Canon 70D camera and Tamron 18-40mm lens on a tripod with exposures from a couple of seconds up to 30 seconds; ISO was from 200 to 1600.

~ Congratulations to NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Team ~

12/26/2024

Parker Solar Probe: Humanity’s Closest Encounter with the Sun
NASA news: 26th December 2024

Controllers have confirmed NASA’s mission to “touch” the Sun survived its record-breaking closest approach to the solar surface on Dec. 24, 2024.

Breaking its previous record by flying just 3.8 million miles above the surface of the Sun, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe hurtled through the solar atmosphere at a blazing 430,000 miles per hour — faster than any human-made object has ever moved. A beacon tone received in the late evening hours of Dec. 26 confirmed the spacecraft had made it through the encounter safely and is operating normally.

This pass, the first of more to come at this distance, allows the spacecraft to conduct unrivaled scientific measurements with the potential to change our understanding of the Sun.

Read more:
https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/nasas-parker-solar-probe-makes-history-with-closest-pass-to-sun/

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre
https://www.nasa.gov/goddard/

~ Andromeda Galaxy (M31) 2.5 million light years away from Earth ~

10/20/2024

~ 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

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) on Mt Tamborine (Full Moon sky)

10/17/2024

We have had thunderstorms nearly every afternoon since the comet started its journey outward having survived its touch with the Sun. My husband and I raced up to Mt Tamborine west of the Gold Coast to get a clearer view of the western sky.

To my dismay there was a lot of smoke in the sky, it did make for a beautiful coloured sunset photo but for any chance of seeing the comet, well we would just have to wait and see!

I took some test shots with the camera and at 6.40pm you could just make out the comet low in the western sky, fantastic! Also, by this time the full Moon was now coming up in the opposite direction - Oh dear :-o - Oh well - I did the best I could; the main thing was I got the Comet…Yay!

I really think if there had not been smoke and light from the Moon then the Comet would have looked truly spectacular.

My Images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and 18-400 Tamron lens on a tripod with numerous exposure settings from 2 seconds to 4 second and ISO from 400 to 3200.

~ Huge tail Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) at dawn (4:22am) 7th October 2024 ~

10/7/2024

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.

~ Active Sun with large sunspots AR 3848 & AR3842 ~

10/6/2024

The Sun is firing away again with active region AR3848 heading toward the centre of the Sun; another very active sunspot is AR3842 that is rotating toward the western limb.
Both these two areas are likely to produce a CME in the next couple of days!

Images taken with a Seestar S50 with the attached solar filter, 15 images were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS…I really like this little telescope for white light images of the Sun. It’s so easy to set up and within minutes its taking pictures.