May 2022

May 31st 0900 GMT Sun

Conditions were very poor, with a lot of moving cloud but I managed to catch two close sunspots.

May 28th 2200 GMT Binocular Sky Tour

With moving cloud of various thicknesses, any thoughts of photography were out of the question. I had a little binocular scan and was able to see a few objects through the holes in the cloud. Albireo shone like a double beacon. Perhaps as it is fainter and the sky was murky, it was harder to find Nu Draconi. Alcor and Mizar, Epsilon and Delta Lyrae all showed well. Of the deep sky objects, M13, a globular cluster in Hercules and Melotte 111, one of the brightest and largest star clusters both showed well in the conditions.

May 24th Sun

Conditions were cloudy but I managed to catch a sunspot group near the solar limb.

May 22^nd 1125 GMT Sun

After a cloudy start, I photographed the Sun with my DSLR and filter at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/2000 second exposure. I could clearly see the sunspot group in my viewfinder.

May 22^nd 2330 GMT Meteor Hunt

It finally cleared enough to do some meteor shots. The Eta Lyrids were theoretically active, although the chances of bagging a sporadic meteor in that part of the sky was somewhat higher! I aimed my camera, at the usual settings at Cygnus and Lyra and hoped!

At 2338 GMT, I caught sporadic meteor on camera. It was in Cygnus, with Lyra to the bottom right.

I stacked 30 of the first 40 images to get a nice shot of Cygnus and Lyra, also showing Sagitta and Vulpecula.

At 2355 GMT, I caught another sporadic meteor in Cygnus.

The second set of frames showed some Milky Way around Cygnus and Lyra.

Quite a few frames were lost to cloud but I stacked the last 40 to get more Milky Way.

May 21^st 1220 GMT Sun

I had my first look at the Sun, or anything else, for ages and caught it through clouds. There was an enormous sunspot group.

May 17th 1130 GMT

I bin scanned the Sun in a clear sky. The prominent sunspot group I had been following had apparently reduced to a single, small sunspot, whereas new activity had rotated onto the solar disc.

May 14^th 1625 GMT Sun

Conditions were hazy but I managed to see several sunspots.

May 14th 2300 GMT

I attempted a Moon shoot with my DSLR and Mak at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/100second exposure. Despite processing, I was unable to extract much detail from the images.

I finally managed to try out my Angeleyes Electronic Eyepiece. The first image did not stack and was not in focus. I only caught one crater.

I was not able to get anything from the 2nd imaging run or the following 3.

The 6th image had about a third of it useable and I was able to catch an area of maria (sea) and a crater.

Naturally, I was not happy with these results. I installed an older version of Registax (5) and, as I have sometimes found in the past, worked much better.

I caught a bit more detail on the second set of frames with Registax 5 but I was not sure about the focus.

The third set of frames were all blank.

The fourth set of frames looked blank but when I stacked them, a nice edge tom the lunar disc appeared.

The fifth set was blank.

The sixth showed an areas away from the lunar edge, showing some craters lit from almost directly above.

The seventh was similar but not so sharp.

The eighth did not stack in either Registax 5 or 6. The ninth and tenth failed, too but it wasn't bad for first light.

May 13th 1800 GMT Sun

I snapped the Sun with DSLR and filter at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/4000 second exposure. I caught the sunspot region but it did not resolve into individual spots.

May 12^th 0540 GMT Sun

Our nearest and dearest star is more than capable of throwing up surprises in a short time. I bin scanned the Sun, expecting to see a lot of Earth’s rotation since the previous evening and, perhaps, a little bit of solar rotation. Instead, I recorded an additional sunspot. A later look at the Learmonth images showed that the largest sunspot consisted of two plus a myriad of smaller sunspots that were below the resolution of my binoculars and certainly my camera.

May 11^th 2045 GMT ISS and Moon

I was going to photograph the Moon but put the rubbish out first. I saw the ISS or maybe another bright satellite pass close to Arcturus before fading into Earth’s shadow.

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

May 11^th 1810 GMT Sun

Conditions were clear but the Learmonth images showed only small sunspots. I considered that my binoculars and filters would give me the best chance of detecting them. Fortunately I saw them.

May 8^th 2000 GMT Moon

 

It was clear but I had work the next day, so I snapped the Moon with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/400 second exposure.

May 8^th 0915 GMT Sun

 

I snapped the Sun with my DSLR and filter at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/4000 second exposure. The conditions were poor but there was always a chance.

I caught a sunspot about to rotate off.

May 7th 2035 GMT Moon

I was planning a mega Moon shoot, with close-ups with my DSLR and Mak and then with my electronic eyepiece. Unfortunately, I only got a set of full-disc photos with my Mak. I used 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/100 second exposure.

May 7th 0800 GMT Sun

I snapped the Sun as the day before but tried a few frames at 1/4000 second exposure. It was the shorter exposures that produced the best results.

May 7^th Comet NEOWISE F3 Reprocess

I reprocessed an image of this bright comet from July 12^th 2020, using tools in GIMP that I did not know how to use at the time. It brought out the tail in much more detail than I obtained at the time.

May 6^th 0905 GMT Sun

 

While waiting for the kettle to boil, I took a quick photo of the Sun with my DSLR and filter at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/2000 second exposure.

May 5^th 2040 GMT Moon

 

The Moon had “grown” in phase, so I reduced the exposure time to 1/250 second, keeping the ISO setting at 100 and the focal length at 300mm.

May 5^th 1110 GMT Sun

 

The weather was better than the forecast suggested. I snapped the Sun with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/2000 second exposure. I could see the two large sunspots through the viewfinder, so had cause for optimism.

May 5^th 0540 GMT Sun
 

I bin scanned the Sun early because I caught it in a patch of clear sky and the weather forecast for later was not promising.

May 4^th Electronic Eyepiece

 

My tenner’s worth of Angeleyes electronic eyepiece arrived today ahead of schedule. I ran some indoor tests on it with Sharpcap. Fortunately, it installed easily without the problems I sometimes get with devices. Shame I cannot get my Phillips SPC880 to run on Windows 10 but that’s a common problem.

 

I seemed to allow me to select frame rates from 1 per 30 minutes to 480 frames per second. Whether it could deliver that it practice remained to be seen! At least I was ready when the Moon was about and it wasn’t a “school” night.

May 4^th 2100 GMT Moon

 

I snapped the thin crescent moon with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/200 second exposure.

May 4^th 1100 GMT Sun

 

May kicked off with a sunspot drawing and there had been a lot of movement and transformation since my previous viewing on April 30^th.