scotty1

It's clear now but I think the meteor shower peak has gone.

Monday 2nd Jan I did a bit of meteor watching, the sky was clear for a few hours.  

After 40mins observing from the garden, and not a single meteor I went to bed as it was 1am.

That's a beast fireball !, is your cam part of the UK meteor network?

I saw one similar a few yrs back in February. It started overhead and I thought it was a firework. It silhouetted the roof in a double green flash as it burnt out.

There were sightings of that fireball as far away as Scotland.

Plenty of bright clouds here too 🤯

I was looking forward to the Geminids, very cloudy here though. There was a hazy gap in the clouds for half hour before 1am. During about 25 mins I saw 4 meteors, the brightest one was through milky cloud cover and had a slight green hue. Managed to get a photo of it just to the left of Orion.

On my Stellarium mobile (free and plus version) it's in the upper claw of Cancer.  I haven't checked the desktop version of Stellarium for a while.

Buying the components as separates reminds me of buying hifi. 

Does the star adventurerer....bolt straight onto this tripod?  I have a velbon D700, but I'm thinking of getting a star adventurer 2 pro and new tripod to use with my DSLR.

Is that a retrograde orbit?  

Excellent captures👍

Good skills 

That's an  awesome capture 👍

Another clear night yesterday so headed out at 3am, just a couple of miles to escape the worst LP.

I was frustrated by my Astrotracer function that would not operate, the display confirmed calibration complete, but the Astrotracer would not trace, so after a dozen attempts I put the camera in manual mode. 🤬 

Took a few widefield shots of comet Leonard, an occasional Geminid meteor streaked by. I then thought back remembering when I'd been at this location before to photograph comet Wirtanen, I think this was also during December with no moon around. I was able to see Wirtanen with the naked eye, but I've been unable to see Leonard with the naked eye so far. 

Around 5am I headed home to warm up. I set my camera tripod, and Astrotracer up in the garden, the Astrotracer now decided to function, I got 10 second exposures at 260mm without trailing. The sky had lightened a bit around 6 am, so I got my 10x50 bins quickly, and was able to see Leonard. It was a diffuse patch through the bins, that would be easy to miss, unless you knew ware to look, not helped by the arriving dawn. 

Friday into Saturday may offer another chance to observe Leonard if the forecast holds.

Despite having a flu like bug I stupidly stood in the garden for 2 hours 2.30-4.30 am with camera, tripod and thermals. 

As the sky was clear under a brief ridge of high pressure, I wanted to try and photo Leonard again. While waiting for Leonard to rise past the murky light polluted horizon, I saw three meteors, one left a white glowing trail heading from north east almost overhead. Another seemed to be a Geminid, also caught a meteor on a wide angle shot of Orion. Managed to get a bad photo of Comet 67P Churyumuv Garesimenko above the beehive cluster. 

About 04.30 I thought my lens had fogged up, but it was a thin veil of cirrus ejected ahead of storm Berra. Just before the sky became too milky I grabbed a few shots of Leonard and Arcturus.  

Lots of cloud in the forecast so I'm happy I made the effort, was feeling too rough to drive out of town. 

Cheers 

Clouded out here, Jupiter and Venus were on show at times. Nice similar lineup tmrw evening if it's clear. 

I checked to see if comet Leonard was showing this evening (not sure if it's possible to see unless your on a mountain), too much cloud though.

Lovely shots 

I was out Thursday am also, but became so cold I couldn't focus my lens as I was shaking. Saw a few nice meteors and a couple of flashes of lightning in the distance.  The windchill was nasty, and it made my zoom lens shake enough to distort the stars. Not very relaxing 🥶

Excellent

Really like the bare tree silhouettes. 

Good capture mcrowle 👍 

Nice quality 

Let's hope the sky clears again soon. Would be good to get  another go at imaging this comet.

Taken from the garden on the 25th November in bright moonlight. I could only get the astrotracer to track in one mode. For a cheap grab and go setup it's not too bad.

pentax k70 with 55-300mm lens at 300mm. I used the astrotracer gps taking 12x 20 seconds exposures, ISO 6400. Lazy processing 😇Just light frames no flats etc....

Stacked in DSS processed in rawtherepee.

The cold northerly airstreams are often good quality, less pollution, dust etc. 

A bit of snow last night and cloudy.

Tonight should be clear for a while the further east you are.

Wet snow settling here so no observing so far.

Just wondered if the aurora may show  tonight Scotland if it's clear skies up there. 

Thanks for the tips Peter 

I hope you get the shots with M3.

Regards 

Scotty

Excellent image ,

I tried to capture this scene with a Pentax k70 and 55-300 Pentax zoom on a static tripod. I had 9 minutes of data, but DSS ended up stacking just over 5mins. 

I'm a beginner and only used DSS once before. Hope you don't mind me asking a couple of questions 🤓.  

Did you move the comet away from nearby stars before stacking using the comet settings? 

Any tips on getting the really black background, I tried this before with 46P Wirtanen, I think I stretched the stacked subs in DSS. I understand It's best not to do the stretching in DSS ? 

I don't have photoshop but I use rawtherepee. 

After stacking did you move the RGB histograms to align over each other in DSS.? 

Thanks 

The weather in the UK is looking quite rough for comet spotting.

We did have clear skies Sunday, but a full moon too!

I got a couple of shots with my DSLR. I hope to get Leonard again in December.

I've set my alarm for 4am, incase the clearing skies now over Linc's make  it to east Anglia. 

Edit: 7am

Luckily the sky cleared at 05.15, had 45 mins before the dawn. Taking short exposures on static tripod, as expected the comet is brighter with more tail showing, compared to last Sunday. Now with less moonlight it's helping to show the comet off.

What size is this comet? 

Thanks

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

The details of the capture are on this image, the meteor was on two frames, the head was faintly green and the trail spanned several frames. This image is a composite of all the frames. Allsky camera facing East on an inside window ledge running AllSkEye.

This was the platesolve, given the location I'm hopeful it was a Leonid.

I'm not sure if it's a satellite flare?

I've been out during the early hours for the last week or so, I haven't seen a single meteor, the moon mostly likely washed them out.

Good views you have there.

I borrowed my brother's bins earlier before the moon rose. They are Swift Newport mk ll 10X50. We've had them since the 80s and seem good for astro, and  general use.

I was looking at this flyby with stellarium mobile.

With a static tripod DSLR, and 300mm lens. I don't expect to capture an APOD type of image 

😉 

I tried a few shots last night and picked up the whale and vaguely hockey stick. Shame the moon is diluting these clear skies.