Despite the cloud cover, I managed a clearish view with my Baader 9mm ortho. Ganymede and Europa nice and bright, and just made out the Great Red Spot. But the clouds certainly ain’t helping…
Lovely to see an ‘old friend’ again though.
Typically, as I began to pack up the clouds cleared so had a few minutes of shining clarity. A hint of pale orange/tan from the GRS.
Tried for the Ring Nebula but lost my bearings (out of practice- first time I’ve had the scope out this year) and getting cold…Barefoot observing not the most practical!
Yes and Saturn is getting better placed too. I also managed a much better observation of Mars at 200x earlier in the week at 5.30am. Waking early has its benefits. I recently upgraded to a dual speed focuser which has really helped.
I did once manage to see Triton visually (through a 20 inch Newtonian telescope when on holiday in Portugal), but it was right on the limit of averted vision observing.
We went a Starry Starry Night at a farm last night, billed as a food wine music and with stars. The food wine and music was fantastic but rain prevented the starry part of the night.
Research on the James Webb pics have identified a couple of galaxies emitting light at just 350M years after the big bang with far clearer images than seen before. Cool!
Very low-tech (compared with the above)
Taken though a bedroom window
The village church says hello to the moon
It was one of those rush jobs, and just, only just, in the nick of time.
But what’s that on top of the moon? Has NASA got that far with Artemis already? Or maybe the Chinese? Or, worryingly, is it something sticking up behind the moon?
We’re only amateur star gazers but just back from Tenerife where we went on a Night Skies trip up Mount Teide.
Highly recommended - we saw the Andromeda galaxy, moons of Jupiter, rings of Saturn and much more. The people who run it are genuine emthusiasts and have amazing telescopes for you to use.
Yes, I noticed that, maybe it’s Wallace & Grommet’s space rocket.
But it’s just a camera anomaly, no real usable light, slow shutter speed, loss of detail etc., it’s actually the weather vane.
A news item on www.BBC this morning on Light Polution, or SkyGlow as it’s also known.
“ The number of stars that people can see with the naked eye has reduced dramatically over the last decade. “
The news item is based on a report from the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam.
Amongst many things it concludes that modern low cost LED lighting has encouraged advertising and 24/7 building illumination to expand at an unprecedented rate.
It also notes that LED street lighting designed to reduce light pollution by directing light only downwards has helped in local area lighting but has been overwhelmed by building & other lighting on a countrywide basis.
I’m very pleased with my village street lighting campaign that has in the last month replaced a mix of old non-directional lamps with LED down lights, I have a noticeable improvement of night sky viewing, to say nothing of a totally dark bedroom.
If you don’t mind getting up early comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is visible in low power. Midway between Bootes and Draco it reminded me of Andromeda with with a brighter core/nucleus.
A spectacular stary gazy night last night ….
Awesome views of Venus and Jupiter from dust until they set in the exceptionally clear western sky.
Then around midnight when I went to bed, looking north, wow !!! aurora ! ‘northern lights’ a yellow orange glow, then it turned green blue, brighter lower and bright again.
What’s so special? this is east Oxfordshire!!!. Last time I saw then from this location was in the 1980’s.
The news is just full of it this morning, Scotland & N.England was even more wow some, far more spectacular than I saw.
Yes, that’s how it appeared to me back at the time of peak of viewing.
I did my usual lazy thing of scanning the sky in the approximate location and i stumbled upon what looked like a galaxy that I didn’t expect to be there. Spent a further hour waiting for a clear patch between the clouds and looking at other stuff, then decided to look up where it actually was! I set the scope for the correct altitude with my inclinometer and compass bearing and there it was again, a fuzzy galaxy with a brightish dot at its centre.
So I guess I found it the first time!
I have no idea why it mattered to me but I felt compelled to spot it, never to be seen again.
Kia ora Mike-S, yes agree you are probably too far north, even the south island coast looks a stretch too far, Invercargill latitude is 46.41S
My location is 51.74N.
Added problem in the southern hemisphere at this time of year is its just coming out of 24 hour summer daylight, antarctica & its upper atmosphere is still in full sunlight.
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PS: @Mike_S A selection of photos from todays UK news
This is one of the more stunning given the famous landscape
Latitude 51.17N
This is from the Shetland Islands, the most northern part of UK
Latitude 60.52N
