Thursday, October 2, 2025

October 2025

October 12th 2210 GMT Moon 

 

The Moon was waning gibbous. I found it by using Capella as a sighter then using the skymap with the Seestar S50.



October 11th 2045 GMT Moon and More

 

The Moon was up but too low for the Seestar S50. I had a go, anyway.



Thin cloud was scattering moonlight everywhere. Despite this, I had a go at photographing the galaxy M77. It was behind cloud but the open cluster NGC1750 was not. I took four integration runs for a total of 27 minutes.



October 10th 2045 GMT Moon and Saturn 

 

I photographed the Moon with the Seestar S50 by using Capella as a sighter.


Despite the poor conditions, I had a go at Saturn.


I captured the rings by stacking 3 images in Deep Sky Stacker, longest run 7 minutes and finished in GraXpert and GIMP.


I photographed Neptune with the Seestar S50, treating it like a deep sky object. I used 6 seconds integration.


I stacked 5 integration runs of M77 taken with the Seestar S50, the longest 58 minutes, in Deep Sky Stacker.




October 6th 2220 GMT Moon and Saturn 

I photographed the Moon then Saturn with the Seestar S50. 



October 6th 1020 GMT Sun 

I photographed the Sun with the Seestar S50.



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



October 6th 0005 GMT Moon and Saturn 

I photographed the Moon and Saturn with my phone camera and was amazed to capture Saturn in the lunar glare.


October 5th 2005 GMT Moon, Saturn and the western Veil Nebula

I photographed the moon with the Seestar S50.



I photographed the Western Veil Nebula with the Seestar S80. I stacked 8 integration runs in Deep Sky Stacker, the longest being 74 minutes. I used the Exposure and Saturation features in GIMP to finish.


October 5th 1105 GMT Sun 

There was a lot of moving cloud but I hoped to capture the Sun with the Seestar S50. I got some shots that appeared to be cloud-free.


October 5th 0035 GMT Moon and Saturn 

After packing the Seestar S50 away, it cleared. I took some shots of the Moon and Saturn together with my DSLR at 70mm focal length, ISO 1600 and 1/40 second exposure.

In case the Seestar S50 lunar shots did not work, I snapped the Moon at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/1000 second exposure.

None of the shots worked.

October 5th 2345 GMT Moon and Saturn 

I was trying to photograph the Moon and Saturn's moons with the Seestar S50 but cloud rolled in and I was dubious about the image quality.


I processed a single shot of the moon with the Sesetar S50.



October 4th 1815 GMT Moon 

 

I had a bit of trouble finding the Moon with the Seestar S50, eventually using the Skymap and manual movement.


October 4th 0845 GMT Sun 

 

I photographed the Sun with the Seestar  S50.


 I zoomed to 4x to take some regional sunspot images with the Seestar S50. 



October 4th 0400 GMT Jupiter and the Crab 

I photographed Jupiter's moons with the Seestar S50.


 

I increased the zoom to 4x, turned the brightness down to minimum, refocused and snapped Jupiter, hoping to get some details. I didn't!

 

I had a go at the Crab Nebula (M1) with the Seestar S50. Cloud rolled in as dawn was breaking. I did 7 integration runs, the longest being 13 minutes. I stacked using Deep Sky Stacker, GraXpert worked a treat and I adjusted the Exposure and Saturation in GIMP.



October 1st 2100 GMT Wizard Nebula 

 

Conditions were far from perfect but there was a patch of clearish sky overhead. I photographed the Wizard Nebula in Cepheus  with the Seestar S50. I did 7 runs that I stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, with the longest being 69 minutes. I tried GraXpert but had better results without it.

 

October 1st 2030 GMT Moon 

 

I retried the Moon with the Seestar S50 and nailed it this time. I stacked 10 images.


October 1st 1740 GMT Moon 

 

I photographed the Moon with my Seestar S50 or tried to. It thought that the moon was behind a house.

October 1st 1540 GMT Sun

 

The sun was low in the south west, in a bank of thin cloud. I saw three sunspots with my binoculars and filters, although there were more small ones on the Learmonth images.