May 2025

May 2025 Summary

May was an interesting month. I lost some days due to bad weather but still managed some interesting photos. Not only did I photograph some deep sky objects for the first time but also revisited some objects I had photographed before to see if I could improve on them.

Sun

The sun was not as active as it had been and I was starting to wonder whether the solar maximum had passed. I experimented with the Seestar S50 with the sun. Although I could capture better regional close-ups with it, the Mak/DSLR combination gave the best full disc shots.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/philippughastronomer/54527289377/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/philippughastronomer/54528359109/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/philippughastronomer/54534300690/in/dateposted-public/

Moon

The Moon is usually well-placed from the UK and other northern temperate countries in May. I managed quite a few interesting shots but I found the focus on the Seestar S50 needed a bit of learning from me.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/philippughastronomer/54504360374/in/dateposted-public/

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Planets

After a few months of excellent planetary viewing from England, May 2025 was not conducive to planetary viewing. Jupiter and Mars were sinking into the evening twilight and Venus was poorly placed in the morning sky.

I was not able to capture any planetary details on Jupiter but was able to record the positions of its moons.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/philippughastronomer/54520520885/in/dateposted-public/

Fortunately, the Seestar S50 enabled me to capture Venus in broad daylight!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/philippughastronomer/54534304160/in/dateposted-public/

I tried for Mercury and Saturn but did not succeed.

Constellations

I did not capture any constellations during May 2025.

Deep Sky

This is what the Seestar S50 was designed for and what I bought it for. The results were amazing!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/philippughastronomer/54508550564/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/philippughastronomer/54508438956/in/dateposted-public/

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Transient Events

I did not capture any transient events. The exception was two trails that were probably meteors but there was also a possibility that the could have been satellites.

Photo Gallery

A link to my photo album for May 2025 follows:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/philippughastronomer/albums/72177720325858124

May 31st 2030 GMT Moon 

 

I used the Seestar S50 to do a lunar photo shoot. I took some full disc shots.

 

I took some lunar closeups with the Seestar S50 at 4x zoom.

I took some shots of the Moon in scenery mode to see what would happen.

May 29th 2120 GMT Moon 

I had a frustrating session trying to photograph the Moon with my Seestar S50. I tried levelling the tripod and using Regulus as a sighter, as I had used other bright stars and Planets in the past. 

My only image was of Regulus with companion star.

May 28th 1650 GMT Sun 

 

I took some full disc solar images with the Seestar S50.

I increased the zoom level to 4x to capture most of the sunspots with the Seestar S50. The stack did not work, so this is created from a single image.

May 23rd 0000 GMT M13

Much of the sky was covered by cloud so I tried many deep sky objects with the Seestar S50 and failed. However, the globular star cluster M13 was in a clear patch of sky. I took 8 images with as total integration time of 72 minutes.

May 22nd 2315 GMT Deep Sky Session 

I had Session with the Seestar S50 on the deep sky objects around Scorpius and Sagittarius.

I used the globular star cluster M80 as a sighter.

I stacked 4 images of M4 with a total integration time of 21 minutes with the Seestar S50.

I combined this image with another one earlier in the month to give a total integration time of 29 minutes with M4 with the Seestar S50.

I did 19 minutes of integration on M8 with the Seestar S50, stacking 5 images.

I did 14 minutes integration on M62 with the Seestar S50.

May 20th 1140 GMT Sun and Venus 

 

I photographed the Sun with my Seestar S50.

 

Again, Venus was hiding in plain sight and I photographed it with my Seestar S50 at 4x magnification.

May 19th 0029 GMT Deep Sky Session 

 

I used the Seestar S50 to capture the Deep sky objects M23, M24 and M25.

I stacked 4 images for a total of 9 minutes integration for M23 with the Seestar S50.

I stacked 5 images for a total of 15 minutes integration for M24 with the Seestar S50.

I stacked 3 images for a total of 16 minutes integration for M25 with the Seestar S50.

May 18th 2315 GMT Deep Sky Session 

 

I went out with the Seestar S50 to try for some deep sky objects.

The galaxy M51 seemed to be in some haze. I wanted to capture a few images for stacking but just took one. I did not try to process it.

I caught the open star cluster M18. No problems but it was a small, sparse object. I used 3 minutes integration time with the Seestar S50.

 

The Triffid Nebula (M20) was more spectacular. I took 46 minutes integration time with the Seestar S50.

I managed three minutes on the open star cluster M21 with the Seestar S50.

I took 13 minutes integration time with the Seestar S50 on the globular star cluster M22.

May 16th 2230 GMT Deep Sky Session 

 

I went out with the Seestar S50 to capture an object I had not captured with it before and also tried getting better photos of two objects I had photographed previously.

M4 took 8 minutes of total integration time with the Seestar S50.

M10 took 20 minutes of total integration time with the Seestar S50.

M101 took 48 minutes of total integration time with the Seestar S50.

May 15th 1625 GMT Sun 

 

I took some full disc snaps of the Sun with the Seestar S50.

 I took a closeup of the main sunspot group with the Seestar S50. I used auto focus.

May 14th 2210 GMT Deep Sky Session 

 

I took the Seestar S50 out for some deep sky snapping, taking multiple images for stacking.

I caught a meteor near M51. The exposure was 12 minutes.

M51 took a total of 36 minutes integration with the Seestar S50.

The Pelican Nebula (NGC5070) took 2 hours 30 minutes integration time with the Seestar S50.

May 14th 1045 GMT Sun and Venus 

 

I used the Seestar S50 to photograph the Sun at full disc and 4x to get a closer shot of the active region that had rotated on.

 

I used the Seestar S50 to find Venus. Not for the first time, it told me it it hadn't found it but it was hiding in plain sight. It was dancing in the unsteady atmosphere. I took one "stablilish" shot.

 

I had a go at Mercury. I couldn't see it but saved some images just in case. It did not work.

May 14th 2210 GMT Moon 

 

The Moon had not long risen and was too low to get from our backyard. I went out the front and immediately ran into problems! I had to change my phone settings to connect to the Seestar S50.

I could not find the Moon immediately, so used my trick of finding Spica first. I found the Moon had not completely risen above the houses.

OK, I changed position and finally found the Moon but it was out of focus. I went I to the focus menu and tried auto focus. This failed dismally, rather like how my DSLR camera does on auto focus.

Manual focus was somewhat tricky but I made it. I took some full disc shots and shots at 4x magnification to show Copernicus and Grimaldi.

May 10th 2030 GMT Moon 

I took some full disc shots of the Moon with my Seestar S50. I turned down the exposure time and gain settings to minimum, as the Moon was nearly full.

I changed the magnification to 4x to take some regional shots. These did not work.

I caught the globular star cluster M3 with a meteor.

May 10th 0840 GMT Sun 

I photographed the Sun with my Seestar S50. I had to recalibrate the compass and level the tripod before I could find the Sun.

I changed the Seestar S50 magnification to show some sunspot closeups. These showed no more detail than the full disc shots.

May 9th 2045 GMT Moon

I took some full disc shots of the moon with my Seestar S50.

I increased the magnification of the Seestar S50 to 4x and took some close-ups.

May 9th 0840 GMT Sun and Venus 

 

I photographed the Sun with the Seestar S50 at normal settings, although I turned the exposure and gain right down.

I took a solar closeup at 4x magnification with the Seestar S50 to highlight a sunspot group.

 

Although the Seestar S50 told me it couldn't find Venus, it was hiding in plain sight. I used 4x magnification to show a smaller size but larger phase than I did the previous month.

May 8th 2050 GMT Moon 

 

I photographed the full lunar disc with the Seestar S50.

 I used the Seestar S50 at 4x magnification to take regional shots of the southern craters.

 

I used the Seestar S50 at 4x magnification to take regional shots of Plato, Sinus Iridium and Copernicus.

May 7th 0745 GMT Sun 

I snapped the Sun with my usual settings of 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

May 6th 2245 GMT M83 and M107

 

Conditions were poor, with thin cloud scattering moonlight. I used the Seestar S50 to catch the galaxy M83 for the first time.

 

I revisited the globular cluster M107 with the Seestar S50, hoping I could improve on my first attempt.

May 6th 2110 GMT Moon 

 

I took some full disc Moon shots with the Seestar S50.

 

I took a closeup of the southern craters with the Seestar S50 at 4x magnification.

 

I took a closeup of Plato, Copernicus and Kepler with the Seestar S50 at 4x magnification.

May 5th 2015 GMT Moon and Jupiter 

 

The Seestar S50 could not find the Moon.  I used Mars to set up the S50, even though I could not see it. I found it and saw two background stars.

 

I used the Seestar to photograph the Moon, using normal settings to photograph the full disc and 4x magnification to snap some close-ups.

 

I snapped Jupiter's moons at 4x magnification with the Seestar S50.

May 6th 1535 GMT Sun 

 

I photographed the Sun with my Maksutov telescope and DSLR camera at my usual settings of 1.54m focal  length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

May 5th 0015 GMT Deep Sky Session 

The sky unexpectedly cleared after a long time image processing and posting them online.

I took a total of 7 minutes with the Seestar S50 for the Dumbbell (M27). 

The Crescent Nebula (NGC6888) took a total of 17 minutes with the Seestar S50.

The globular cluster M71 took a total of 4 minutes with the Seestar S50.

The star cluster M11 took a total of 1 minute with the Seestar S50.

The star cluster M26 took a total of 7 minutes with the Seestar S50.

The Eagle Nebula (M16) took a total of 11 minutes with the Seestar S50.

The Swan Nebula (M17) took a total of 9 minutes with the Seestar S50.

The Bat Nebula (NGC6995) took a total of 9 minutes with the Seestar S50.

The Veil Nebula (NGC6992) took a total of 58 minutes with the Seestar S50.

May 3rd 2230 GMT Deep Sky Session 

 

I photographed some nebulae and globular star clusters with the Seestar S50.

The globular cluster M9 took 8 minutes exposure with the S50.

The globular star cluster M80 took 5 minutes with the S50.

The nebula IC5067 took 11 minutes.

I caught 20 minutes of the North America Nebula but didn't quite nail it.

May 3rd 2035 GMT Jupiter's moons and the Moon 

 

I used Capella to set up the Seestar S50 and photographed Jupiter's moons.

 

I aimed the Seestar S50 at the Moon and took some full disc shots and some close-ups at 4x magnification.

May 3rd 1650 GMT Sun 

 

There was some moving thin cloud but I had a go at photographing the Sun anyway, as there was a nice sunspot group. I used my usual settings of 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure. I only had one good frame, so processed that.

May 2nd 2100 GMT Jupiter's moons and the Moon 

 

I photographed Jupiter's moons using the Seestar S50.

I photographed the Moon and turned down the exposure and gain. I used the Seestar S50 at normal settings and stacked several images.

I stacked two sets of lunar closeups with the Seestar S50 at 4x magnification.

May 1st 2210 GMT Deep Sky 

 

Unfortunately, the sky was cloudy in parts and I was trying to photograph the globular cluster M68 and the galaxy M83.

I found M68 and took several exposures with the Seestar S50 and stacked them.

M83 was clouded out.

I caught the central part of the star cluster Melotte 20. 

May 1st 2045 GMT Moon and Jupiter 

 I used the Seestar S50 to capture Jupiter's moons at 4x magnification.

 

I took several full disc lunar shots with the Seestar S50 and stacked them.

May 1st 0720 GMT Sun 

 

I started a new month by snapping the Sun with my Mak telescope and DSLR camera at 1.54m focal length. ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.