September 2021

September 29th  0630 GMT Moon

There was a thick waning crescent Moon high in the sky

 I snapped it at 300mm focal length  ISO 400 and 1/125 second exposure.

September 26th 1000 GMT Moon and Sun

There was a short warm and sunny period between the storms that did not feel like autumn at all. I snapped the Moon at 300mm focal length, ISO 400 and 1/200 second exposure. Neither set of shots worked.

I snapped the Sun at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/1000 second, revealing a sunspot, with a small one close by.

September 26th Lyra and Hercules Reprocess

With the weather being awful at the weekend, I tried to stack some images from May 19th 2020. The stack failed but I managed to process a single frame of Lyra and Hercules. Draco's head and parts of Cygnus are also visible.

September 24th 2120 GMT Moon

Conditions continued to be difficult but  managed a better result on the Moon than the day before at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/100 second exposure.

September 23rd 2055 GMT Moon

Difficult conditions persisted, with thin cloud scattering moonlight. An early attempt to capture Jupiter's moons failed and my moon shot at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/125 second exposure was barely passable.

September 21st 1945 GMT Moon

I snapped the Moon at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/125 second exposure.

September 20th 2000 GMT Moon

I snapped the Moon at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/125 second exposure.

September 20th 0445 GMT Betelguese

The dawn sky was clear. I compared Betelguese with the usual comparison stars and estimated its magnitude at 0.3.

September 19th 2040 GMT Moon and Jupiter

Conditions were the same as the previous evenings, with moonlight scattered by thin cloud. I started off with the Moon at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/160 second exposure.

I tried the same settings on Jupiter and again at 1/50 second but neither set worked.

I then tried for Jupiter's moons at my usual settings.

September 18th 2100 GMT Moon and Jupiter

I tried to repeat of the shoot from the evening before, but cloud moved in before I could capture the Moon.

September 17th 2030 GMT Moon and Jupiter

There was a lot of cloud around. I snapped the Moon at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/100 second exposure. However all shots were out of focus.

I caught it with Jupiter at 70mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 1/25 second exposure.

September 16th 2040 GMT  Moon and Planets

 

I had another go at the Moon with the same settings as the evening before.

I also tried the Moon with Saturn. However, Saturn failed to register, due to the conditions and the relative brightness of the two objects.

 

I had a go at Jupiter, then with its Moons but the usual settings were too hazy, so I tried some shorter exposures. 

 

I finally tried Melotte 20 but initial indications were unpromising. I was right!

September 15th 1945 GMT Moon

 

It was somewhat hazy and the Moon was low down. I snapped it at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/200 second exposure. It seemed faint on the monitor so I tried a few frames at 1/100 second exposure.

 

I had a quick go at Jupiter with the same settings.

Unfortunately, nothing worked, again.

September 11th 2120 GMT Planetary Moons

 

I had lost a few days to weather and a house move and it was my first session from the new home in Corsham.

 

Conditions were poor, with most of the sky covered by cloud. The only sensible targets were the planetary Moons of Jupiter and Saturn. I snapped them at my usual settings of 300mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 2 seconds exposure.

 Unfortunately, nothing worked.

September 10th Reprocesses

I rechecked some images from April 19th 2020 and saw a short purple trail in Lyra.

I reprocessed a shot of a Lyrid meteor at 2304 GMT.

September 4th 2145 GMT Jupiter

Conditions were hazy. Despite the absence of the Moon, Jupiter was the only suitable target.

I snapped the moons at 300mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 2 seconds exposure.

I was unable to get an image of Jupiter's planetary detail.

September 4th 1035 GMT Sun

I saw some sunspots on the Learmonth images but did not catch any.

September 4th

 I found a few gems that  had not processed at the time. First was M35 in Gemini, a stack of 5 frames at 70mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 6 seconds exposure.

At 135mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 4 seconds exposure, the view was somewhat better.

September 3rd

I reprocessed a Moon shot from April 19th 2019 but it was very similar to my moon shot of 18th.

I reprocessed an image of Orion's belt and great nebula from Feb 19th 2019.

September 2nd 

With 100% cloud cover, I reprocessed a shot of the Sun with my DSLR from April 2019.

After checking the night sky and (again!) finding 100% cloud cover. I did a similar reprocess on a Moon shot from the same day (April 18th 2019).