November 2024

November 29th 1250 GMT Sun 

 

There was a fleeting passage of clearish sky. I photographed the Sun with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/1600 second exposure. I would have been clouded out had I set up my Mak telescope.

November 29th 0740 GMT Moon 

The slim waning crescent Moon hung low in the south east. I snapped it with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 400 and 1/100 second exposure.

November 28th 0915 GMT Sun 

The sky was clear, so I photographed the Sun with my Mak and DSLR at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

November 28th 0650 GMT Moon 

I photographed the thin waning crescent Moon in the dawn sky with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/50 second exposure.

November 27th 2350 GMT Jupiter and Mars 

I used my default settings on my phone camera to take some photos of Jupiter with Mars. I stacked 10 images in Sequator, using dark frames and finished in GIMP.

November 27th 2040 GMT Hyades by phone camera

 

OK, this was an experiment! I used default settings on my phone camera but zoomed by 3x. The idea was to stack about 20 images. It didn't work as well as I hoped but I did catch the main V shape of the cluster.

November 27th 2035 GMT Jupiter in Taurus

I wasn't well enough to do a proper photo shoot so I had a go at capturing Jupiter in Taurus with my phone camera. I was hoping to stack a few images as I had before. The result was not perfect but using Sequator with dark files proved the method.

November 26th 0840 GMT Sun and Moon 

I woke up to clear sky. I snapped the Sun with my Mak and DSLR at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

 

I snapped the Moon with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 400 and 1/200 second exposure.

November 25th 1150 GMT Sun 

I woke up to clear sky but my optimism was quickly extinguished when a shower moved in. However, it passed and I snapped the Sun with my Mak and DSLR at my usual settings of 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure, or so I thought! I had left the ISO setting on 400 from a previous session. I could extract sunspots from a  single image but could not stack.

November 22nd 1010 GMT Sun and Moon 

I woke up to proper clear sky. I photographed the Sun with my Mak and DSLR back to my usual settings of 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

 

The Moon was high in the west and needed me to be a contortionist to find and photograph. I used my DSLR only at 300mm focal length, ISO 400 and 1/500 second exposure.-

November 22nd 0130 GMT Moon 

I snapped the Moon with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure. All images were too fuzzy to use.

November 21st 2315 GMT Sirius and Orion 

 

I snapped Sirius and Orion with my phone camera. I stacked six images and captured the main parts of Orion but could not get rid of the haze. I tried GraXpert but it crashed.

November 21st 2310 GMT Moon and Mars 

I snapped the Moon with Mars using my phone camera at default settings. I also caught Castor and Pollux, the two brightest stars in Gemini,

November 21st 2230 GMT Jupiter with Betelguese 

 

I took several images of Jupiter with Betelguese with my phone camera at default settings. I also caught Rigel and some other stars in Orion.

November 21st 1630 GMT Venus 

Venus was low in the south west. I tried to capture it with my phone camera at default settings. Whilst I could see the planet visually with ease, it did not record on my camera.

November 20th 1850 GMT Jupiter and Capella

I used my phone camera to capture Jupiter with Capella, the brightest star in Auriga. By stacking 5 images and using GIMP to enhance the image and reveal some fainter stars.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/philippughastronomer/54157485627/in/dateposted-public/

November 20th 1640 GMT Venus 

Venus was slightly better-placed than it had been the last time I saw it. I snapped it with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/200 second exposure. Against expectations, I got 3 images to stack and the result suggested an 80% phase.

November 20th 1155 GMT Sun 

 

There was some blue sky about but the Sun was low, in the mist. I photographed it with my Mak and DSLR at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/320 second exposure. I used a slightly longer exposure than normal to counteract the mist.

November 17th 1200 GMT Sun

I bin scanned the Sun through moving cloud and saw the same two sunspots I had seen two days before. They had rotated but were still clearly visible.

November 15th 2030 GMT Moon and Jupiter with planetary moons

 

I used my Mak and DSLR to snap the full supermoon at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/1000 second exposure.

 

I moved to Jupiter and increased the exposure to 1/200 second exposure.

 

I changed the ISO setting to 6400 and exposure to 1/3 second to try to capture some moons.

It was not perfect but I captured all four main Galilean moons. I combined it with the planetary photo to form a composite.

I changed my operations to my DSLR and 300mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 2 seconds exposure. I went for Jupiter's and Saturn, hoping to capture some moons. I didn't! 

I redid the Moon, as it was a supermoon and I did not think I captured the whole disc. I set my DSLR to 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/2000 second exposure.

 

I tried to capture the Moon and Jupiter with my DSLR at 35mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 1/25 second exposure but Jupiter had disappeared behind cloud. 

I used the same settings to capture the lunar halo.

I combined the halo image with one of the Moon on its own.

November 15th 2000 GMT Moon and Jupiter 

The Moon was full and very bright. I snapped it with my phone camera with Jupiter.

November 15th 1200 GMT Sun

I bin scanned the Sun through moving cloud and saw two sunspots.

November 14th 2255 GMT Moon, Jupiter and Mars 

I used my phone camera at default settings to capture the Moon with Jupiter, then Jupiter with Mars.

November 14th 2000 GMT Moon and Planetary Moons 

I photographed the Moon with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/1000 second exposure.

 

I photographed Jupiter's moons with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 1 second exposure. I did not catch any. 

I tried to capture Saturn's moon Titan at the same settings. I did not catch it, either.

November 13th 2120 GMT Moon and Jupiter 

 

The forecast cloud thickened but it did not obscure the Moon, nor Jupiter.

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

 

I photographed Jupiter at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/100 second exposure. This was underexposed, under the conditions, and I did not capture any details.

 I photographed the moons at 1.54m focal length, ISO 6400 and 1/3 second exposure.

November 13th 1730 GMT Moon 

The forecast clouds were already gathering. I snapped the Moon with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

November 13th 0915 GMT Sun 

The Sun appeared to be very quiet, as I photographed it with my Mak and DSLR at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

November 12th 2300 GMT Moon 

 

It cleared a bit, so I had another go at the Moon. First up was the lunar disc at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/100 second exposure. This did not work, with no lunar disc visible. 

Next was the lunar halo at 70mm focal length. ISO 100 and 1/25 second exposure.

 

Then I retried the lunar disc at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/400 second exposure. I only had one decent image.

November 12th 2130 GMT Moon 

The Moon was shining through some thin cloud. By the time I had returned with my camera, the clip had thickened. I ended up with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/25 second exposure and hoped!

November 12th 1305 GMT Sun 

 

It took a long time for the cloud to clear and the Sun was already noticeably low in the sky. I finally caught it with my Mak and DSLR at my usual settings of 1.54m focal length,  ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

November 12th Jupiter, Mars and Sirius 

 

It had cleared ro the south. Betelguese had appeared to brighten a bit, perhaps to about magnitude 0.4.

Mars had brightened quite considerably since I last saw it. I snapped it with my phone camera at default settings with Jupiter and Sirius. For the first time, I had managed to stack phone camera images to show two background stars.

November 11th 2030 GMT Moon and Jupiter 

 

I took my Mak and Angeleyes electronic eyepiece out and did a lunar imaging session. Not everything worked but I saw some interesting lunar closeups on my laptop screen. I converted the movie files in PiPP and stacked using Registax 5.

Meanwhile, Saturn had sunk too low for observation from our back garden.

I turned my attention to Jupiter but cloud rolled in. I switched to my DSLR with my Mak and shot the moons at 1.54m focal length, ISO 6400 and 1/3 second exposure. It did not work, as all shots were blurred.

 I then tried for the planet with the same setup but with ISO 100 and 1/200 second exposure. I caught the two main cloud belts.

 

I was hoping to catch the Moon with Saturn but Saturn was clouded out.

I tried to capture the lunar halo but my initial exposure with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and1/500 second exposure just caught the Moon.

I decreased the focal length to 100mm, with ISO 800 and 1/25 second exposure to catch the halo.

November 11th 1725 GMT Venus, Moon and Saturn

 

I did a quick photo shoot with my phone camera at default settings.

 

I used 8x zoom to capture Venus between two houses.

At 2.8x The Moon and Saturn both appeared in my photos.

November 11th 1650 GMT Moon and Venus 

 

I finally saw the Moon in clear sky and photographed it with my Mak and DSLR at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

 

Venus was low in the west and too low to use my telescope on. I switched to my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/200 second exposure. As suspected, it suggested a 100% phase.

 

I finally tried to capture the Moon with Saturn but moonlight and twilight conspired to make this difficult. I finally nailed the shot with my DSLR at 100mm focal length, ISO 1600 and 1/25 second exposure.

November 11th 1205 GMT Sun

The predicted clear sky did not materialise. There was lot of cloud, with varying degrees but I managed to see two sunspots through my binoculars and filters.

November 10th 1415 GMT Sun 

Some slivers of pale autumn sunlight broke through some clearer patches of sky. They were neither clear nor broad enough to reveal any sunspots to my binoculars and filters.

November 9th 2325 GMT Jupiter and Aldebaran 

 

The first tiny bit of clear sky in the month showed just Jupiter and Aldebaran. I photographed them with my phone camera at default settings before they vanished! It needed quite a lot of processing in GIMP to extract Aldebaran from the cloud.