Graham Darke

The Moon still fully covers the Sun presently during an eclipse, well usually anyway. The Moon’s orbit around the Earth is not perfectly circular so at certain times of the month the Moon is either closer or further away from Earth than its average distance. The variation in distance between the Moon’s closest point and farthest point from Earth is 26,500 miles approximately. If the Moon Earth and Sun align at a point when the Moon is closer then the Moon’s apparent diameter as seen from Earth is greater and fully covers the Sun during a total Solar eclipse. If on the other hand an eclipse occurs when the Moon is further from Earth then the Moon’s apparent diameter may not completely cover the Sun and we have what’s called an annular eclipse. If that happens then the Moon only covers the central part of the Sun, as seen from Earth, leaving a ring of fire. Whether we get a total or annular eclipse depends entirely on where the Moon is in its orbit around the Earth when the nodes align. Very occasionally we get something called a hybrid eclipse where the Moon’s apparent diameter is only great enough during some of the eclipse to completely cover the Sun and for remainder of the event we have an annular eclipse. The Moon is indeed receding from Earth at a leisurely 4 cm per year so at some point in the very distant future it won’t have sufficient apparent diameter to fully cover the Sun during an eclipse. Right now that doesn’t happen however.

I would second that advice about joining the FAS. The liability insurance makes it worth it on its own but more than that these days it concentrates on offering loads of support and help to people and clubs. They have templates for all sorts including constitutions and advice in all areas of society governance. They take away loads of the admin burden.

Looks like this might make a striking spectacle at low power this coming Friday. Screen grab from Sky Safari below showing the position of the Moon at 20.49 GMT. The blue circle is the field of view of my 35mm Panoptic coupled to my TEC140 refractor. Please stay away clouds!

Nice one Reggie!

300mm is a pretty good focal length for totality to get corona and sky around around it.

Not very “hidden” there is it!

Better get your kit ready for the total solar eclipse in a few month’s time. Looks like a pretty decent focal length you have for such an opportunity there.

This is the dark nebulae surrounding IC2087 in Taurus and part of the Taurus DN Complex. It is made up of a number of LDN objects.

Hello and welcome to SGL. I’ve been a member of Sunderland Astronomical Society for over 30 years, since it began. I’ve given talks to all of the local societies in the North East and they are all very friendly and welcoming. We (Sunderland AS) meet twice a week at the Washington Wetlands Centre, every Sunday and Thursday evening from 7pm. We’re not open tomorrow night with it being New Years Eve but will be back next Thursday. Feel free to pop along. When arriving at the front door of the Wetlands visitor centre just look out for the arrow lit up with red LEDs. It has a wireless doorbell attached to the top of it above the point of the arrow. Give the bell a press and someone will be along to let you in.

Thanks Geof.

Imaged in reasonable seeing for where I live a few nights ago. TEC140ED, 2x barlow and ZWO ASI662 camera. One 2 minute SER file best 25% stacked. The red barge visible right in the centre of the southern equatorial belt was very prominent visibly through my 12" dob.

This is my favourite of the year. Eskimo nebula NGC2393 in Gemini. TEC140ED ZWO AS662 119x30 seconds with darks and flats

Here's my effort in Pixinsight. I only used the Ha and OIII channels assigned HOO. Then ran it through BlurX. GHS followed by StarX then applied Unsharp Mask to starless followed by NoiseX and Dark Structure Enhnace in Scripts. Starless was then treated with narrowband normalisation preserving Ha and boosting the OIII very slightly. Colour mask mod was then applied and had a very small amount of red added to the yellow parts of the image. Stars image had some curves to tame the blue followed by SNCR on stars only. Pixelmath to recombine.

That’s nice. It’s a tough target this one as I only too well know.

I would look to book yourself some accommodation now for the night before the eclipse. It will be heaving on the day and rooms go quickly. Prices for anything remaining will go right up nearer to the time of the event too. I went to the 2017 eclipse in the USA and couldn’t get a room within 50 miles of the centreline for the night before.

Reminds me of the Hubble image. I like it.

Interesting.

Not much in it is there. Were the number of subs in each image similar?

2nd image from Kelling Heath at the weekend. 30x180s TEC140ED and ZWO ASI071MC Pro.

First of a couple of shots from the Autumn Equinox Sky Camp at Kelling Heath. IC1613 is an irregular dwarf galaxy which is part of the Local Group. It sits on the Pisces/Cetus border. 28x300s TEC140ED and ZWO ASI071MC-Pro camera. No calibration frames unfortunately as I didn't get a chance to shoot any. Probably worth revisiting this target properly in future with more subs and of course calibration frames.

Imaged last Wednesday night from Cumbria 40 x 300s TS71 Quad and ZWO ASI 071MC Pro camera. Processed in PI.

There’s something nice about M45 with diffraction spikes.

Nice! Tracking platform?

Thank you

Couple of images from early hours of this morning. First image taken at 00.38 BST showing Ganymede's shadow. Single 3 min video with Orion VX12L scope ZWO ASI662 camera and 2x barlow for f10.6. Second image is three 3 mins videos from between 01.39 and 01.46 BST derotated and shows Io transiting the Great Red Spot. I hadn't realised that these events were taking place and captured them by accident. Before packing up I stuck an eyepiece in and was treated to a very unusual view of the GRS with a very bright spot of Io centred over it as it approached the limb.