Partial eclipse 29-03-2025
Hazy cloud at 10:20 and gradually got worse.
March 2025
All these images were taken with the LX200 and ZWO ASI183 Pro. The 27 year old LX200 has been removed from its old fork mounting which has a faulty declination drive, and placed on a Ioptron CEM 70. Tracking is much improved. The skies here are Bortle 7 so deep sky imaging remains challenging.
January / February 2025
A few recent planetary images
Autumn 2024M33 galaxy in Triangulum taken on 27 and 28/11/2024 with ZWO ASI 183 and Skywatcher.
Comet A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS). 30 seconds at ASA200 with a Canon 450D about 20:00 on 17/10/2024.
M31 ZWO ASI 183Andromeda Galaxy on 03/10/2024 with the Skywatcher and Atik 314. Processed in StarTools.
M27 Dumbell Nebula 3 minutes of RGB with the Skywatcher at 300mm FL
July 2024
The sun with the Skywatcher and Baader film white light filter, ZWO ASI 290MM.
April 2024
Coloured stars in the M67 star cluster and the moon both taken on 16-Apr-2024
January 2024
An image of the Jellyfish nebula IC443. 2 hours each of HA and OIII
A narrow band SHO image of IC1805 the Heart Nebula.Taken with the 80mm Skywatcher. 45 minutes for H alpha and OIII and 90 minutes for SII.
California Nebula NGC1499 with SkyWatcher and H Alpha and Oxygen III filters. Processed in Startools and Paint.Net . Taken 17-01-2024 and 18/01/2024 both very cold but transparent nights. Minimum temperature was -9C.
December 2023
Jupiter on 01/12/2023 with excellent seeing
November 2023
Jupiter is now high in the northern sky so the next few years will present the best opportunity for imaging for 12 years. This with LX200, ZWO MM 290 and IR pass filter
May 2023
Supernova SN 2023ixf in M101. 50 x 1 minute with the Skywatcher at f6.25.Taken from 22:10 and 23:00 UTC on 28/05/2023
The Venus collection. All images ASI290MM, UV filter and 250mm SCT at f10
April 2023
The moon with the Skywatcher 80mm and IR filter
Venus again with the UV filter and a slight blue tint added. The image from 28/04/2023 is the best I have managed so far.
March 2023
After a very cloudy run a brief clear spell with the first quarter moon nicely high in the sky and decent seeing. LX2000 and ASI290MM IR pass.
October 2022
Amazingly the weather was fine for the partial eclipsed on 25/10/2022. This image was taken at 09:30UTC with a PST and ASI290MM
September 2022
Jupiter
Mars very high in the dawn sky but the seeing wasn’t great on either day
August 2022
Jupiter is back in the northern hemisphere sky.
June 2022
Mercury on 23/06/2022. LX200 at f10, ASI290MM and IR pass filter. Although the image is a bit noisy there there is good agreement with the reference image in terms of large scale features.
May 2021
An image of the ISS on 22/05/2021 at around 21:00UT. Taken with the LX200 at f10 and the ZWOASI290mm. Almost exactly a year since I got my sharpest ISS image ever this one is not quite so sharp. The latest image shows the Dragon capsule docked.
Another image from the 18th. Seeing was poor but the view is quite different. In this case the solar panels are mostly in shadow so hard to see.
April 2021
Moon images taken with the 250mm SCT at f10 and the ASI290MM with Baader IR pass filter on 19/04/2021. The smallest craters are around 1km in diameter which is at the theoretical limit for a 250mm scope.
March 2021
After a cold winter I finally got some more imaging done. Here is an image of NGC1893 and IC410 taken on 02/03/2021. 40 minutes each of Hα, OIII and SII with the Skywatcher 80 and Atik 314L. Processed in Star Tools using Hubble Palette.
December 2020
The great conjunction of 2020 between Jupiter and Saturn is the closest easily observable for several hundred years. This image was taken at around 16:30 0n 20/12/2020. This is with the Skywatcher 80ED ZWO ASI 290 camera. This was 24 hours before closest approach but the day itself was inevitably cloudy.
November 2020
Mars at 00:07UTC on 11/10/2020. IR-RGB with the LX200 at f10 and ZWO ASI 290MM camera
September 2020
NGC6888 Crescent Nebula in Cygnus. Around 30 minutes each of H alpha and OIII with the Skywatcher and Atik 314.
13/09/2020 was unseasonably warm and sunny and I managed to image all 5 naked eye planets during the day and following night. Venus was a morning object and Mercury an afternoon hence the opposite phases.
Here is a close up of the Mars image which was taken when the seeing was very good.
July 2020
Comet 2020 F3 Neowise
This image was taken from North Wales on 19/07/2020 at 00:15. I used a Canon EOS 450D, a Canon 55mm to 250mm zoom lens at 250mm and 10x 1 minute exposures at ASA800.
The comet looked great through 10×50 binoculars with the tail clearly visible. It was just a couple of days past peak brightness at this stage.
May 2020
ISS
LX200 at f10 with the ZWO ASI 290MM and Baader IR pass filter. Exposure 5ms. A stack of 40 frames.
ISS pass video from 26/05/2020
For the last few months Venus and the moon have been putting on a good display at sunset.
