November 2017

November 30th 1240 GMT

The Sun was very bland, so I just took some full disc shots in hydrogen alpha light with my PST.

November 29th 1725 GMT

The sky was cloudy and there was a halo around the Moon. I took some full disc shots and halo shots with my DSLR. The halo did not come out properly.

November 29th 1055 GMT

The Sun was very quiet in hydrogen alpha light, so I took a few disc frames and close-ups only, and not a full shoot.

November 28th 2030 GMT

I had a busy day, so only had time for a quick binocular scan of the evening sky. The Moon was bright and about 9 days since full. Sinus Iridium was on the terminator and looking great, as were the southern craters.

Only the brighter open star clusters were easily visible. The Pleiades (M45), Hyades and Melotte 20 all showed well, despite the bright moonlight. Fainter objects, such as the Orion Great Nebula (M42) were very faint or invisible.

November 27th 2150 GMT

My main idea was to have another go at photographing the polar regions but first I used the Moon to focus and took a few frames at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/1000 second exposure.

I then took a few frames with the Pole Star in the centre of the frame with 300mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 20 seconds exposure. Unfortunately, stacking did not work.

November 26th

2000 GMT

I took a few frames of the Moon with my Mak and DSLR but tried an exposure of 1/250 second.

November 26th 0030 GMT

I took a few frames of M35 with my DSLR at 135mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 8 seconds exposure, then shot some dark frames.

November 25th 1930 GMT

I set my DSLR pointing overhead with 18mm focal length ISO 6400 and 8 seconds exposure. I did not pick up any stars, possibly due to incorrect settings.

At 2020 GMT I pointed the camera at Auriga.
At 2112 GMT, the frame was not great quality but I caught a meteor just north of Auriga.

I stacked the first 100 frames using Microsoft ICE and finished in GIMP to get the widefield image.

At 2105 GMT, I moved the camera to Taurus. I stacked the first 13 images.

November 25th 1910 GMT

I took a few frames of the Moon with my Mak and DSLR at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

November 25th 1110 GMT

The Sun seemed quiet in hydrogen alpha light and cloud rolled in before I could complete the shoot.

November 24th 1315 GMT

It was still lunchtime for many people, but the Sun was noticeably west and low down. I did not see any features visually but took a full set of images.

November 23rd 0910 GMT

The Sun was low but I proceeded with a hydrogen alpha shoot as the weather forecast for later was poor and I had a busy morning on. Slow-moving cloud did not help and it seemed that my lens cleaning was not 100% either. Again!!!

November 19th 1220 GMT

Visually, the Sun seemed very quiet in hydrogen alpha light. However, as I found detail in the photos from the day before, I proceeded with a full photo shoot. Unfortunately, my lens cleaning had done more harm than good!

November 19th 0300 GMT

I finished off by taking a few shots of the Pleiades (M45) at 180mm focal length, 8 seconds exposure and ISO 6400.

I tried the same settings on Orion’s belt. DSS didn't work but I managed to stack 20 frames in Microsoft ICE.

I also took some dark frames.

Nov 19th 0040 GMT

After a wet day, the sky finally cleared and clear it did! I was about a day late for the Leonid meteor shower peak. I aimed my camera in the Cancer area with ISO 6400, 8 seconds exposure and 18mm focal length.

I tried to stack images with Deep Sky Stacker in batches but I was unable to stitch them together. This image had part of Cancer on the lower right and shows the Beehive. Parts of Ursa Major and Gemini are visible.

Unfortunately, I did not catch any meteors, Leonids or otherwise and most of the remaining frames were ruined by dew.

November 17th 1100 GMT

With clear sky and a sunspot visible in the Big Bear images, I took a shot of the Sun with my DSLR, Mak and filters. Focal length was 1.54m, brightness was ISO 100 and exposure time was 1/2000 second.

I proceeded to do a solar hydrogen alpha shoot straight afterwards. I did not see any detail visually but hoped that I would find some in the photos, as the day before.

November 16th 2130 GMT

I thought it was more than time to do some observing. Orion was rising in the east and I was able to make out the Orion Great Nebula (M42). Further up, the Pleiades (M45) and Hyades looked superb. M35, in Gemini, was low but clearly visible. Melotte 20 and the Perseus Double Cluster looked superb and I forgot to check M34. The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) was almost directly overhead, so a bit of a neck-breaker but looked superb, with a hint of the structure that is visible in larger instruments. I even saw some of the Pinwheel (M33) but, as usual, found the spiral arms easier to see than the centre. I could not make out M29 and M39 in Cygnus against the background Milky Way, which looked truly superb. I saw the globular cluster M15, just, but M13 was simply too low, as were M81 and M82.

I attempted some photographs but the focus was badly out.

November 16th 1000 GMT

There was a clear patch of sky but it was forecast to cloud over later. I did a solar hydrogen alpha shoot. The Sun was quiet but I proceeded to take some full disc and close-up shots.

Nov 12th 2115 GMT

The sky was clear so I left a camera out with the intervalometer at 18mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 5 seconds exposure.

At 2140 GMT, I captured a meteor on camera.

I stacked 200 frames to obtain a widefield shot of Cassiopeia, which includes the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), the Perseus Double Cluster and Melotte 20.

November 10th 0905 GMT

At 12 degrees Centigrade, it was unseasonally mild but the Sun was low down. It seemed quiet in hydrogen alpha light but I took a few exposures, with some partially covered by cloud.

November 8th 0910 GMT

I checked the Sun in hydrogen alpha light with my PST. The disc looked bland but I proceeded to take full disc and close-up shots anyway.

November 8th 0800 GMT

The Sun was up but the Moon was high and bright in the west. I took some exposures with my Mak and DSLR at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/1600 second exposure. I soon realised that this was under-exposed.so increased the exposure time to 1/800 second.

November 5th 1845 GMT

It was dark and the Moon was not yet up. Time to see if I could catch some Taurid meteors on camera. I aimed the camera at the Perseus/Auriga area with 18mm focal length, ISO 600 and 5 seconds exposure. As it was cold, I let the intervalometer do its stuff.

There was action on the third frame as I caught a short meteor trail near Melotte 20 in Perseus. Due to its direction, it wasn't a Taurid.

Two minutes later, I caught another sporadic (non-shower) meteor west of the Perseus Double Cluster.

I caught a rotating satellite trail.

I found another meteor near north-western Perseus. Was this co-incidence or was there a pattern emerging?

I caught a few fireworks but this was memorable.

Finally, I stacked 7 images to get Perseus.

November 5th 1330 GMT

I was waiting for some clear sky and it finally arrived! However, the solar disc was mostly bland apart from on the left limb. I took some full disc shots and selected close-ups.

Nov 4th 2210 GMT

I went out to do some Moon snapping but found a lot of moving cloud about. I used the Mak at 1.54m focal length and my DSLR at ISO 100 and 1/400 second exposure. I stacked 141 images in Microsoft ICE and finished in GIMP.