November 2022

November 28^th Jovian Moons, Deep Sky and Betelguese

 

I snapped Jupiter’s moons with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 2 seconds exposure.

 

I changed my settings to 70mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 8 seconds exposure.   I took a few frames of some deep sky targets.

 

I started with the Hyades.

 

 

 I moved to the Pleaides (M45). It took a lot of processing using GraXpert as well as GIMP.

 

 

 

Then the Orion Great Nebula (M42) but the skyglow near the horizon was bad.

 

 

Lastly, M35 in Gemini.

November 22^nd 1220 GMT Sun

 

I bin scanned the Sun in poor conditions and caught a single sunspot.

November 22^nd 0700 GMT

 

I snapped the Moon in the dawn sky. It was a thin crescent, the day before a new moon and I used settings of 300mm focal length, ISO100 and 1/200 second exposure.

November 20th 1830 GMT Meteor Hunt

Unfortunately, I did not catch any meteors on camera.

November 20th 1200 GMT Sun

I photographed the Sun with my Maksutov and DSLR at 1540mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

November 19th 1235 GMT

I photographed the Sun with my Maksutov and DSLR at 1540mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

November 19th 0030 GMT Meteor Hunt

I continued to search for meteors but a lot of cloud had moved in and I did not capture any.

November 18^th 1830 GMT Meteor Hunt

It was clear, so I set a meteor trap. I set my camera at my usual settiings of 18mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 6 seconds exposure, set to take photos every 12 seconds. I aimed at Perseus, with the Pleiades. There was the Taurid meteor streams active in the area, so a chance to catch some.

At 2205 GMT, a strange, unidentified object appeared.

I processed a single frame of Perseus to get this shot.

GraXpert kept crashing my computer, so I just processed another single frame in GIMP.

November 18th 0695 GMT Moon

I snapped the Moon with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

November 17th 1200 GMT Sun

I bin scanned the Sun and saw a single sunspot that had probably just rotated onto the solar disc. The previous active regions had rotated to the far side of the Sun.

November 13^th 1750 GMT Planetary Moons and Meteor Hunt

 Jupiter and Saturn were both prominent in the early evening sky and I attempted to capture their moons with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 2 seconds exposure.

 I only caught one of Jupiter's moons but I also caught a meteor, by pure luck.

Titan weas very close to Saturn.

 

I switched lenses and set my intervalometer to hunt for meteors at my usual settings of 18mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 6 seconds exposure. Unfortunately, it was cloudy near the horizon where I was expected both Northern and Southern Taurid meteors to appear.

 

I aimed at Perseus instead but found the area very hazy, so I switched to Cassiopeia instead. A single frame came out OK-ish.

Moving the camera up produced a better result.

At 1927 GMT, a faint meteor, probably a Taurid, appeared in Cassiopeia.

At 1936 GMT, I caught a UFO>

Were it not for the small white dot, where no stars were known at its position, I would have thought it was an almost head-on meteor, but I recorded it as unidentifed. It was 2000 GMT.

It seemed a mere 6 minutes later that "ET" decided to put in another appearance. Unless there is a more earthly explanation.

At 2009 GMT, another UFO appeared!

At 2014 GMT, a rather strange pattern appeared.

June 13^th 1150 GMT Sun

 

It looked as if the microclimate of Corsham, being at the top of a hill had won out. I was just starting to do a sunspot drawing from poor conditions when it cleared enough to do a proper “white light” shoot with my 127mm Maksutov and DSLR at 1.54 metres focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

November 12^th 2250 GMT Moon

Conditions were poor, as there was a lot of moving cloud. I was pleased to get a result on the Moon with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure. 

November 9^th 2030 GMT Moon

 

I snapped Jupiter then the Moon at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/1000 second exposure. The Jupiter snaps were blank but I processed a decent lunar image.

November 8th 2000 GMT Moon

I snapped the Moon with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/1000 second exposure. Despite that, it was still a bit over-exposed, but a bit of processing in GIMP sorted that out.

November 8th Cassiopeia September 23rd yet another take

I processed a further 6 frames in GraXpert then stacked them in Deep Sky Stacker. Although using GraXpert took a long time, the stack was much faster.

November 7th Cassiopeia September 23rd another take

After trying to process the stacked image of Cassiopeia, I tried to process a single frame in Graxpert, an application (free!) that is intended to remove gradients. It seemed to work.

November 6th Cassiopeia processed from September 23rd

I revisited some meteor search photos from September 23rd, with Cassiopeia in the centre of the frame. I stacked 15 of 20 frames in Deep Sky Stacker and finished in GIMP.

November 6th 1005 GMT Sun

Some light from the Sun had made it through the cloud, although conditions were hazy, at best. I went for a binocular scan of the Sun and caught two sunspots.

November 4th Perseus Reprocess

I started off by stacking some Perseus photos from October. I had installed Graxpert, free software that I had downloaded to sort out gradients in my constellation photos.  I managed to remove much of the gradient but not all. Obviously, a lot more experimentation needed but I had to start somewhere.

November 4th 1055 GMT Sun

I had another go at the Sun but could not get anything apart from tiny details, which was a pity. I had come to the conclusion that DSLR only solar photography was not the optimum method but opportunities to take my Mak and DSLR out were more infrequent.

November 3^rd Eclipse Reprocess

One of the most annoying things that can happen when you replace your laptop is that a lot of devices and software no longer work. Who hasn’t got a drawerful of old webcams and imaging devices? Such also is the case with Microsoft ICE that I used for stacking still images. I had tried Registax a few times but my image files were just to big and it ran out of memory.

I tried Autostakert and used the previous month’s solar eclipse as a trial. It sort of worked. The resultant image was somewhat sharper but the whole process took over an hour! It reminded me of the old days of long DeepSkyStacker runs. Add to that having struggles with re-installing the Windows version of the video editor. Well, such is the life of the modern astronomer, who spends more time on their laptop than under the stars!

November 2^nd 0915 GMT Sun

 Conditions were a bit hazy but I managed to take another shot of the solar disc, as the day before.

November 1^st 0915 GMT Sun

 

With a dark and stormy end to October. It was to some surprise that there was a patch of clear sky. Unfortunately, a chest infection meant that going outside with my telescopes would have been against medical advice, to say the least. That did not deter me from taking a “regulation” shoot of the Sun with my DSLR and filter.

October 2022

October 25^th 1000 GMT Partial Solar Eclipse

 

There was some clear sky before the eclipse started but it did not clear again until it reached about mid-eclipse.

There was another clear spell later. I checked the Sun again with my DSLR at 1025 GMT and the lunar disc had retreated.

October 21^st 0550 GMT Moon

 

I snapped the Moon in the dawn sky with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/200 second exposure.

Unfortunately. the Photo was overexposed.

October 20^th 1830 GMT Meteor Hunt

This was a repeat of the shoot on October 17th, in the same part of sky.

At 1837 GMT, a very bright meteor, almost a fireball, appeared to be a Taurid. The fuzzy patch to the right is the Andromeda Gakaxy.

Seconds later, in the next photo, I caught another bright meteor in Cassiopeia. This one came from the direction of Pisces, so was not from a shower.

At 1938 GMT, I caught another bright Taurid,

I processed a single photo to show the constellation of Perseus.

October 17^th 1830 GMT Meteor Hunt

 

It was dark already and lots of stars were out. I aimed my camera at Perseus, with the Taurid, Aurigid and Orionid showers all active, with the Orionid meteors possibly coming from below the horizon.

I caught a bright meteor at 1841 GMT that was not from any shower.

At 1857 GMT, I caught a fainter meteor in the same part of sky.

At 2001 GMT, I caught a UFO. Significantly, the sky was so misty that the only other object visible was the bright star Capella.

At 2018 GMT, I caught another UFO.

Just one minute later, another one!

October 17^th 0510 GMT Moon

 

The last quarter moon was high in the south east in a hazy sky. I photographed it with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

October 15^th 2200 GMT Moons and Planets

 The weather forecast had been bad and it was true that, even if the Moon had been absent from the night sky, any attempt at deep sky, constellation or meteor photography would stand as much chance as a village football team would have of winning the FA Cup. Despite that, there was the Moon, Jupiter, Mars and Jupiter’s moons all giving a realistic chance of a decent shot.

The first set of photos was with my Maksutov and DSLR at 1,540mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/100 second exposure.

 

 

I added a 3x Barlow lens to deliver an increased focal length of 4,620mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/8 second exposure, although I decreased it to 1/15 second exposure for Jupiter.

I combined the above Jupiter photo with the photo of Jupiter with moons at the shorter focal length of 1.54 metres.

October 14^th 2010 GMT Meteor Hunt

 

I set the camera at my usual meteor settings and aimed it at Perseus. There were Taurid meteors in the area plus a small chance of some Orionids coming from the horizon.

At 2058 GMT, I caught a strange trail when the moonlight had drowned out all the stars, including Capella, Some of the dots could have been ad bright as magnitude -3.

At 2120 GMT, a less spectacular but no less interesting trail appeared.

At 2230 GMT, I caught something similar.

Just 4 minutes later, I saw an object that just MIGHT have been a very bright head-on meteor but I feel safer claiming it as unidentified.

October 13^th 0610 GMT Moon

 

The waning gibbous moon was riding high in the south west in a clear sky. I photographed it with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

October 10^th 2045 GMT Moon
 

I did a quick shot of the Moon with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/800 second exposure.

October 9^th 0030 GMT Jupiter, Moon and Others

 

It had cleared a bit and Jupiter and the Moon were in east-west orientation. I started with a widefield shot of both at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/40 second exposure.

 

I then tried the Moon with my Mak and DSLR at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

 I combined this with the photo of the Moon with Jupiter.

I tried a similar approach for Jupiter but increased the exposure to 1/200 second exposure.

I attempted to capture its moons at 1/3 second exposure.

 

Naturally, I combined the two photos.

I combined this with the photo of Jupiter with the Moon to get the final image.

I tried an audacious attempt at Mars, which was too far away to try it by setting the exposure to 1/100 second exposure. No, it didn't work!

 

I set the camera and DSLR at 1.54m focal length, ISO 6400 and 1/3 second exposure to attempt to split Castor, then capture M42, the Orion Great Nebula. 

I did not split Castor but I caught a shot of M42.  The nebula was faint but I caught the Trapezium: 4 stars embedded in it.

Betelguese was, again, about magnitude 0.4.

October 8^th 2105 GMT Moon and Jupiter

 

The Moon and Jupiter were even closer in the sky than the evening before but, unfortunately, there was a lot of thin cloud around and not much was visible. I took a series of shots with my DSLR at 300mm focal length and ISO 100.

The full disc moon shots did not focus, so that was it.

October 8^th 1025 GMT Sun

 

Being Saturday, with a clear sky, I photographed the Sun with my Mak and DSLR at 1.54 metres focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

 

 I followed up with two sets of closer shots at 4.62 metres focal length, ISO 100 and 1/40 second exposure.

October 8^th 0120 GMT Betelguese

 

I checked outside before going to bed. Mars was in Taurus but I thought it better to wait until a moonless night before taking a shot. With Orion clear of the horizon, Betelguese looked unusually bright. From experience, being as brighter as Rigel was due to extinction, with Rigel being nearer the horizon. On the other hand, it was far brighter than Aldebaran, which was a lot higher. Checking also against Pollux, I came to an estimate of magnitude 0.4.

October 7^th 2110 GMT Moon and Jupiter

 

I started off taking a shot of the Moon with Jupiter at 70mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/50 second exposure.

 

I followed up with a full disc lunar shoot with my Mak and DSLR at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/200 seconds exposure. The first image was inspired by the "mineral moon" photo and I boosted the saturation a few times.

I did a more traditional process.

I switched to Jupiter at 1.54m focal length, ISO 6400 and 1/3 second exposure to capture the moons. The Jupiter shot was underwhelming, with only a hint of the cloud belts.

I zoomed in, using a 3x Barlow lens to 4,62m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/200 second exposure to try and capture planetary detail. I managed to underexpose Jupiter, which rather takes some doing. I combined the moons shot with the planetary disc.

I combined all the photos together.

 I increased the exposure to 1/15 second to take some lunar close-ups.

 

 

With damp outside, I was not going to take my laptop outside, so no webcamming for me!

October 6^th 0655 GMT Sun

 

The Sun had cleared the houses just before it was time to start work. Well, actually, I had already started work but 8AM is my official start time, so I just stopped for a couple of minutes before my official start time, as it was predicted to be cloudy at lunchtime. I did a quick shot with my DSLR and filter. I used an exposure time of 1/1600 second exposure, as the Sun was still quite low in the sky but, otherwise, used my normal settings. I could see a large sunspot in my camera in my viewfinder, so I had a good chance of a decent photo.

October 5^th 2045 GMT Moon and Planets

 

At last, some clear night sky. It seemed like weeks since the last one, but it wasn’t quite clear, with some cloud around. I started off with the Moon, then Saturn and Jupiter, just in case I could get some detail. I snapped Jupiter’s moons at the usual settings and the Moon with Saturn.

Jupiter and Saturn did not work but I got Jupiter's moons.

I combined the first and last shots to obtain a composite Moon with Saturn image.

October 2nd 1045 GMT Sun

 

“Confess!” said the Spanish Inquisition, so I did, indeed, confess. I should have been getting on with the housework, as a good husband should but I’m not always a good husband. The wet and cloudy early morning had given way to bright sunlight. I had seen the Learmonth images and knew that new activity had emerged onto the solar disc, having rotated from the far side. I also knew that, whilst my filtered binoculars or DSLR, alone, would not do it justice. Mrs Astronomer might forgive a quick  bin scan but she doesn’t read my blog.

 

So, yes, usual set-up. I stuck a filter on the finderscope and could see sunspot activity immediately. Had I had more time, I would have done a shot or few of the view through the finderscope. I took the usual shots through the Mak with filter and DSLR at 1.54 metres focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

October 1^st 1145 GMT Sun

 

There was lots of moving cloud, of various thicknesses. I bin scanned the Sun to reveal two large sunspots.