Friday, June 5, 2026

June 2026

June 26th 2200 GMT M17


I photographed the nebula (M17), a.k.a. The Swan Nebula with the Seestar S50. I did 55 minutes integration before it disappeared behind a fence.



I did a 1 minute integration of 2 second exposures of the Ring Nebula (M57).


June 26th 2045 GMT Moon


I took a video of the moon with the Seestar S50 that I stacked later.




June 26th 1200 GMT Sun


I took a video of the sun with the Seestar S50 that I later stacked.



June 25th 2100 GMT Moon


I took a video of the moon with the Seestar S50 for later stacking.




June 25th 1125 GMT Sun

I took full disc and closeup videos of the sun with the Seestar S50. The sun was 61 degrees above the horizon. The strange colour of the sun in the full disc image was an attempt to highlight the sunspots and hide Newton's rings.







June 24th 2230 GMT M26


I tried to photograph the globular star cluster M22 with the Seestar S50 but it was too low. I photographed the open star cluster M26 instead. I ran an integration for 60 minutes and finished in GraXpert and GIMP.


I tried to capture 10P/Tempel but itr did not show.


June 24th 2050 GMT Moon


I took a video of the moon with the Seestar S50 that I later stacked.




June 24th 0825 GMT Sun


I photographed the Sun with my Mak/DSLR combination at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.




June 23rd 2235 GMT M9


I photographed the globular star cluster M9 with the Seestar S50. I managed 30 minutes integration before it disappeared behind a house. Significantly, I noticed  a dark patch to the bottom right.




June 23rd 0900 GMT Sun


I took 59 still images of the sun with my Mak and DSLR at 1.54m focal length, ISO 500 and 1/500 second exposure.



June 22nd 0740 GMT Sun


I photographed the sun with my Mak and DSLR at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure. I stacked 29 images in Autostakkert and finished in GIMP.




June 21st 0820 GMT Sun


I photographed the sun with the Mak and DSLR at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure in hazy conditions. Despite stacking 25 images, I could not find any detail.



June 20th 2220 GMT M107 and M16


I did some short integrations on M107 and M16. M107 took 12 minutes before it disappeared behind a house. M16 took 9 minutes before I had to end the session prematurely.





June 20th  2125 GMT Moon


I had a lot of trouble finding the moon and I needed to use Arcturus as a sighter then manually find the moon in Scenery mode. I took full disc still shots and a video that I later stacked.





June 20th 2110 GMT Moon and Venus


I tried to photograph the moon with Venus with a phone camera but they were quite far apart. Against all odds, it worked!





June 18th 2230 GMT IC4665

I photographed the open star cluster IC4665 with the Seestar S50. I processed a single integration of 73 minutes and finished in GIMP. For some unknowmn reason, GraXpert did not work.




June 18th 2100 GMT Moon and Venus


I was out walking our dogs when I saw the moon and Venus in the dusk sky. I don't think I got them the first time but I did 10 minutes later, with the phone camera.






I saw Jupiter near the horizon but could not capture it with Venus.

I then captured Venus and the moon (separately) with the Seestar S50 but it took a lot of manual finding and using Arcturus as a sighter. I took still images and videos, which I later stacked. For Venus, the still image produced the better result. With the moon, the stacked video and still shot were almost identical.













June 14th 0125 GMT Sun


I took a full disc  video of the sun with the Seestar S50, which I later stacked.











June 13th 2210 GMT Deep Sky Session: M14


I tried to image the globular star cluster M14 with the Seestar S50. I had problems with star trailing and confirmed this when |I tried to capture M5.



I set the exposure time to 5 seconds and tried M14 again.




June 13th 2110 GMT Venus and Jupiter


I photographed Venus with Jupiter with my phone camera.




I photographed Venus with the Seestar S50 but did not detect a phase change from 100% until I removed the red and blue channels and adjusted the contrast..




June 13th 1145 GMT Sun


The sun was a full 61 degrees high in the sky, far too high for my Mak/DSLR combination, so I had a go with the Seestar S50. I took a full disc video and some still closeups.






June 10th 2125 GMT Venus with Jupiter


I took some phone camera shots of Venus with Jupiter.




June 10th 2100 GMT Venus with Jupiter


I took two photos of Venus with Jupiter with my phone camera at dufferent zoom levels.





June 9th 1700 GMT Sun


I used my Mak and DSLR combination at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure. I stacked 18 frames in Autostakkert and finished in GIMP.




June 9th 1050 GMT Sun


I had a few minutes in between cloud to take a full disc video of the sun, with the Seestar S50, which I stacked later.




Cloud rolled in when I tried a closeup video, so a no result there..


June 8th 2105 GMT Venus and Jupiter


I took some photos of Venus with Jupiter with my phone camera.

I tried to find Venus with the Seestar S50 but it did not work.




June 8th 1530 GMT Sun


I photographed the sun with my Mak and DSLR at my usual settings of 1.54m focal length, ISO100 and 1/500 second exposure. I stacked 19 images in Autostakkert and finished in GIMP.




June 8th 1130 GMT Sun


I made several attempts to find the sun using the Seestar S50 but they all failed, partly due to cloud.  I did a drawing from binocular observatiobs, instead.





June 4th 2135 GMT Venus with Jupiter


I photographed Venus with Jupiter from an upstairs window with my phone camera.