scotty1

Cycled three miles out of town to take a few shots of the moon and trees, stayed untill 11pm Incase Noctilucent clouds were around. There were a couple more old dead trees here before, the farmer has taken them down recently, leaving this one. It's a shame when such great photogenic features are pulled down! 

Here is  a few handheld snaps with my pixel 4a in night-shot mode, obviously you have to keep very still.

These were about eight second exposures. The pics were edited as jpgs slightly on the phone, only basic saturation, shadows. I have the RAW versions to maybe edit at some point. The phone sets the exposure automatically. The moon was behind me while looking NNE at the NLCs. 

The thing with Scotland and Wales is there is very dark skies, but often very cloudy skies. 

Those midges would deter the most avid astrophotographer too.

Lyrid meteor 4am on the 23rd

Saw four Lyrids from this good viewpoint, did not get any bright ones though.

Last night Thursday 22nd April at 21.08 I saw an orange light tracking west-east. It was north of Capella around 50 degrees above the horizon.

Traveling about 3 times faster than ISS, a low orbit satellite I'm guessing.

Had another look early this am 03.15-03.45.

One Lyrid was seen at 03.18am, just after 4am my camera captured another Lyrid.

I was tempted out last night by the clear skies. From a semi-rural location between 01.20-03.40 I saw four meteors all of them Lyrids. 

I did get one  meteor on camera but it's small. A bit disappointing, I did see a hint of milky way, and got a few nice widefield shots though. Camera lens fogged up a few times, temperature was 0C

There were a few Tawny owls hooting, and a large hare crossed in from of me on the drive home, only an 8 mile round trip. 

Hi Chefgage do you run a camera battery grip? That's alot of shots you've taken. 

What time was this? I was out taking a few widefield shots between 2100-23.30. I do seem to remember something made me glance east, but it must of burned up by then. I took a wide-angle and my camera in a lowepro rucksack and cycled a couple of miles from town to take some photos. 

When first cycling out of town it seems quite dark, until your eyes adapt. Then when you leave the shutter open for 20secs, it becomes clear it's light pollution in all directions!

Only saw one meteor in the west, it was mediocre though.

Thanks theropod 

Light pollution is increasing in my town, new houses and hotels are being built a few hundred yards from me. Luckily the skies are better 15 mins drive from town.

I hope you get clear skies soon.

I recently bought the GPS astrotracer,and it seems to work well for a simple astro setup. 

Not sure how well it performs with comets, I have a K5, I'm not familiar with the in-camera stacking, are you using a K70 body?

Here's a couple of photos from the Persied, Leonid, and Geminid meteor showers. The weather was warm and clear for the Persieds, about 25 meteors seen in two hours.

Persieds from August 12th

 

Leonid from the 18th, the peak night was cloudy.


 

Geminids from early hours of the 13th December, during two and a half hours I observed 58 Geminid meteors.

Clear skies 1-2am i spotted six Geminids, and got one on camera, Saturday night I saw a green flash in the east when it was cloudy, could've been a Geminid. 

The weather is no good for meteor spotting in the next two days hereabouts, the Ursids are due to peak Tuesday am. Does anyone bother observing the Ursids? 

Lucky cloud breaks between midnight and 3am,using sat24 cloud cover map it seemed to work well. 

Between changing batteries and suffering with headcold/vertigo I casually saw 58 meteors, a new record 4me in one night. On Saturday night I saw 12 meteors, two bright. Only a couple of meteors on camera,may have a look tonight if it's clearish.

👽

11 hours ago, John said:

About the same here.

Lovely again tonight. Tried this self portrait with comet but it came out rather spooky

 

This is centraaall controollll This is centraaall controollll,are you recieving over?. We are ready to transmit....  👽KORTON

From Saturday am, on the way home after a photo session, the nocties joined in.

3 hours ago, happy-kat said:

So many lovely cracking images today.

@scotty1 at what zoom level was that please? 

Edit I think that's at the 55mm end

Hi happy-kat,

The first photo was at 210mm 2.5secs exp. f5.6, iso 2500.

Second pic 300mm 1.6 seconds exp. f5.8, iso 2500  APS-C sensor.

Two from yesterday morning 02.45am, 5 min walk from home. pentax K5+pentax HD 55-300 ED WR iso 2500 1.6 secs f5.8

A couple from the loft at about 02.45 today untracked with pentax k5+300mm zoom 1.6 secs, the clouds cleared about 02.30...

Two shots of Venus during the recent High pressure, while driving on the 19th of jan. i observed a fireball in the east about 17.15, later the same evening i took this photo. 

on another evening  Venus is setting

Took this photo of Venus yesterday, it clouded up on my way to the lake 😞

Another shot with the moon on Dec 30th

Had a look from the garden 01.40-02.20 it clouded up at 02.30, only observed three meteors, one was heading the opposite way towards the Quadrantid radient. 

observed this one from the Quadrantid radient at 02.15

regards

scotty

The weather turned out too be OK, if you were awake in the early hours of Saturday the 14th. Observed six bright Geminids between 02.00-02.40 GMT.

This one passed Orion

Also saw a couple on Saturday before the moon and cloud arrived, i missed this one flying through Taurus about 8pm looking east, but luckily my K5 was taking 15 seconds exps at 2000 ISO. By this time it was a bit cloudy.

regards

scotty1

9 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

Ahh nice one, they go by far worse language in my house. Heavens know why, they keep the monsters from our doors. Might be a legacy of family stories, due to the fact that my grandfather may have worked for the Richardson’s. 
 

Could just be a healthy distrust of authority. Got to keep free thinking alive. Can you imagine what Galileo must have lived through?  Let alone Copernicus?

Can you imagine what Galileo must have lived through?  Let alone Copernicus?

Yes but must of been awesome in their era to view the sky without light pollution. 

Clearer skies moving in from the west now behind the cold front.

40 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

If the skies are clear you can count me in. I will stand in the freezing cold for a meteor shower no matter what. Sort of an unofficial club for night sky lunatics that don’t even need scopes. Could get you arrested for loitering in some places.

Try using astronomy as your defence in court and see how far it gets you. Those binoculars will add five to your sentence.

M

Hi Marvin,

I have already been asked by plod, why do i have cameras poking out of my loft sometimes 🤓. They are amazed that anyone would want to look for/photograph lightning, auroras, noctilucent clouds, or meteors comets. 

We should be watching T.V.....

Hi Paul,

I was looking at the Andromeda galaxy last year through binoculars and a meteor zipped through the view, and that was neat. This was while Comet Wirtenan was around.

During the full Lunar eclipse when we had the red moon, i think a meteoroid was filmed hitting the moon?, the eclipse made it easier to see the impact.

I observed a moderately bright Geminid yesterday at about 21.20 GMT, this inspired (trick🙈ed) me into setting my camera running in the loft.

I saw another 2 meteors between 23.00-23.30 from the garden, they were not very bright, it was -1C so i called it a night.

It was likely too early for any quantity of  Geminids to be seen. If the sky clears the moon is a major hinderence this year...all on me surfaces.

Hi Alexwolf,

Thanks for your reply.

I am not sure how to use those workarounds, ssleay32.dll, libeay32.dll and libssl32.dll 🤔.

I found the 0.18.1 version suggested by Davey-T, and it works ok with adding comets from the list.

I reinstalled the 0.19.2 version again (4th time) and it now works ok too 🙃, so must of been a glitch in the initial setup.

thanks for your help

scotty1