March 2023

March 30^th 1120 GMT Sun

It now seems that April showers have now moved to March, with recent climate change. Despite a very wet and cloudy morning, there was a clear spell at lunchtime. With a bad back and hips, I was unable to carry my telescope, so a binocular scan it was and I saw two sunspots, rather down from previous days. Still, at the time, I was grateful to get a look at anything outside Earth’s atmosphere.

March 27th 1915 GMT Moon and Mars

The moon was close to Mars in the dusk sky. I zoomed in ten times on my phone camera but left the other settings at default. I was not happy with the presentation of the Moon but it was nice to capture something on my camera phone, despite my residual cynicism about them.

March 26^th 1910 GMT Moon and Venus

 

This was my first astronomical session since the change to British Summer Time. The day had been cloudy, wet and windy but, at dusk, I walked our dog and saw the waxing crescent moon. Venus joined in the view, too. It was a while before I got outside. I started with the Moon with my Mak and DSLR at 1.54 metres focal length, ISO 100 and 1/100 second exposure. I took a few shots, with the idea of stacking five of them.

I made an amusing mistake when going in for close-ups. I connected my camera to my Barlow lens, to reach a focal length of 4.62 metres. However, I forgot to take the lower lens cap off before inserting the assembly into the telescope! I got past that and set the exposure to 1/20 second and shot away, taking sets of shots, with the intention of stacking them. Some stacks worked, others didn't and the results were not as good as I hoped.

 

I moved on to Venus, which had started to shine brightly. Through the viewfinder, I saw a gibbous eyeball shape, not unknown when viewing Venus. I have noticed that the phases of Venus are not necessarily the same as the Moon.

 

Cloud had started to roll in again. It had not been a prolific weekend for astronomy and astrophotography but it was better than a complete whiteout and I was looking forward to processing and posting the images later in the week.

March 25th 1120 GMT Sun

I could say that this was rather strange. Despite the weather forecast, there were a couple of clear spells. Unfortunately, the first one did not last long enough to get my telescope outside but I left it assembled in the hope that I might get a second clear spell.

I had some false alarms but I had enough time to get a set of shots of the full disc at 1.54 metres focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure. Some photos were ruined by cloud but I managed to stack five of them in Autostakkert and finished in GIMP. The result showed that, although I could capture sunspots in binoculars, I could get a much better result with a half decent telescope and decent camera.

March 24^th 0745 GMT Sun

 

I arrived at work in bright sunlight. The three sunspots from the day before had changed shape and intensity. It was amazing how the Sun could change in just 24 hours. It is why it is my favourite astronomical object.

March 23^rd 0755 GMT Sun

 

It came to pass that, on this memorable day, the clouds parted long enough for me to see the Sun. As I was about time to start work, I aimed my binocular and filters at this rather strange, bright object that I had only seen fleetingly throughout the month. I was greeted by two large sunspots and one small one, indicating a rather active Sun. I did not see any faculae (bright spots), as I had been through my telescope but it was nice to see something after four gruelling days of hurt, since my last observation.

March 19^th 1020 GMT Sun

March was turning out to be somewhat of a washout, whiteout and greyout, with very little opportunity to see or photograph anything in the sky. A brief spell of sunlight enabled me to do as solar shoot, on my birthday. I stacked 5 images to get a decent full solar disc. All of the activity was on a small part of the Sun, having rotated on from the far side.

I gave my optics a good clean before taking a close-up of the active region. I made the awful mistake of under-exposing the shots, forgetting to increase the exposure time from 1/500 to 1/50 second. This was probably why the images didn't stack. Instead, I processed a single frame and the dust motes were far enough away from the active region. Underexposure, well, yes, but processing gave a nice view of the sunspots and faculae.

March 14^th 1650 GMT Sun

 

There was a clear spell of sky in the late afternoon leading up to sunset. I had not been out for a while, mostly due to weather. I could see just two small sunspots, which was 2 small sunspots more than I had seen for a week. Needless to say, despite the optimistic weather forecast, I was unable to see more than the odd star winning a short battle with the clouds but losing the war.

March 7th 2050 GMT Moon

There are times when I doubt my own sanity but, considering multiverse theories, there must be a large but finite pasts, presents and futures, where, indeed, I go mad. This could be one of them. Conditions were so poor that, at no time during the photo shoot that the Moon was clear of cloud. I stacked 3 images to get a "cloudless" one.

March 7th 1950 GMT Venus and Jupiter

Venus and Jupiter had diverged since the last viewing, with Jupiter sinking towards the horizon. I used a variety of ISO settings and exposure times.

I also caught Venus, showing a slightly less than full phase at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/200 second exposure.

March 2^nd 1910 GMT Venus and Jupiter

Regular readers of my blog and, indeed, my books will know that I am rather sceptical about camera phones. You will also be aware that I have made efforts to photograph the Moon that have shown the phase and no detail. Yet sometimes, we can be surprised. I reduced the ISO settings, as well as the controls allowed me to and ended up with something approaching DSLR quality, after a bit of adjustment in GIMP.

March 2^nd 1630 GMT Sun

 

I waited until after finishing work to check the Sun though my binoculars and filter. I could see two sunspots.