Star child

There was one the other side of the sun to but not as colourful, there was also a sun pillar, so there must have been ice in the air, although it was pleasantly warm that evening.

Thanks, I added this to the Cloud appreciation society facebook page, It got 3 likes! I have added a few other cloud pics to. Funny how i can be a member of the CAS and be into astronomy at the same time. astronmers dont ussuaoy appreciate clouds! And I hate them when they ruin a observing session but i love them when they have interesting forms or colours, during the day that is when you can actually see the forms and colours and they cant ruin a astro session in the day, unless someone wants to so some solar observing!

Martyn, i think i did use a flash on this pic. Thanks for all the comments. I spotted this opportunity when i was taking pics of Vesta! I wonder what the chances of them being so perfectly lined up like that again!

Is that a shooting star in the pic, or satellite or just a aircraft? lovely photo though!

That is incredible

This is a awesome pic, is the one you were working on at Turf hill? I am trying to work out what the fainter galaxies are in the photos, i think the 2 most prominent ones are M63 and M94 but i can see 2 more smaller fainter ones on the left of the pic where the 2 brighter stars are, there's a faint object just above the pinkish coloured star and about half way between the pinkish and the blue star is another object. In fact I have just noticed 2 other objects as well, one is a fuzzy blob that looks like an out of focus star that's to the right of the bright blue star on the left, and if you go up and right from that there is a strange object resembling a tiny pink wotsit.

Hi sorry for the late response, i thought i might get an email to say i had some comments but i didn't see any, first Thanks Russ, it was certainly a nice bright pass. made even better in good company from a decent location, remember seeing the first pass when we left the garage on the way? Hi Tony, yes the pic was taken with a fairly basic camera, well it wasn't anything to fancy like a dslr but its a decent little camera that allows me slightly more control than a very basic compact camera, you need to be able to select a longer exposure, my camera allows up to 15 seconds, the settings i had for this photo was F-stop F/2.8 exposure time 15 seconds for some reason the photo details do not show what the ISO sped was, i wouldn't use anything above 400 on my camera because the pics get very grainy so it would be between 80 and 400, obviously mounted on a tripod and using a 2 second delay after pressing the shutter to avoid any wobbles after i press the shutter, hope this has been useful and that you are soon taking some great pics of ISS yourself.

Nice one! has that storm subsided now on Saturn?

ah its NGC 4562!

nice! what is the fainter galaxy to the left?

awesome photo, the detail is amazing

Thanks, I like it becuase it was no fluke about the iridium flare, i checked heavens above so knew there would be a flare and i knew where it would be, i guessed i could fit the flare and the comet in the same photo, which i acheived and i was very pleased with the result!

Its rare but it can happen if the conditions are just right, i remember the conditions were good, as indicated by space weather, there was a earth bound flare, i think it was a X class flare, Mark will probably remember, we decided to drive out to stockbridge down, something that mark very fondly reminds me off is how he was saying there was aurora as we were driving up the M3 and i was dismising it as light pollution, however when we hit the darker skies i knew it was aurora then, you could actually see it moving like a curatins blowing in the wind, and then we could see vertical beams shining up from the horizon these moved from side to side sometimes merging with each other then splitting again.

I think this was in the late 90's maybe 98 but not sure, and i think it was in october, it's also not the only time we saw them from that location, which is why i call it aurora down! i just hope i will get to see them again, now this time i'll be armed with my digital camera and more knowledge of how to take astro photos, back then i only had my old fashioned film SLR and i was so excited by the aurora i couldnt really concemntrate on getting a decent photo, i know i took lots and lots of photos and used lots of different settings hoping i would get at least some decent pics, only i never made any notes about what settings i used for each photo!

Thanks, pic was taken on the 5th of November 2007, i have just added a more zoomed in photo from the same date

Orion nebula through my scope (just taking a photo through the eyepeice) hence the wobbly stars

Faint greenish Geminid meter (to the left of the pic) from 2009, not a stunning pic but its my first meteor pic so im still pleased with it!

Orion from my flat, sky and stars are incredibly clear considering this is from my town looking south over Southampton!

Here is green Aurora, also from Stockbridge down, Hampshire UK.

I cant remember if it was from the same display as the red aurora, we have seen it more than once from that location but i think i have only taken photos from one display so it may be the same one.

Again this is a photo of a photo so its a bit fuzzy, also not having much experience of aurora photography, well, none at all really! the actual photo probaly isnt as good as it could be.

It was an amazing display, there were vertical beams cutting through the green glow that danced about and merged with each other, yuo can see soem hints of the beams in the pic if you look close!

To most people this might be a rather boring photo, but anyone who knows what it is will appreciate it, apart from seeing aurora, this is probably the rarest astronomical even i have witnessed.

It's the transit of venus from 2004.

Me and a freind went to Toothill observatory where they were holding a public viewing event, i made a simple binocular projector, it worked!

It was nice that although there were telescopes with filters, some people did have a look at my projector!

For the photo, i simply put my lens up the eyepeice of a scope with a filter and took a series of photos, adusting the exposure time with each pic.

This was back in the days when i had to wait to see what the result was like when i got the film developed, this was the best one i got.

Red Aurora Borealis from Stockbridge down, Hampshire, UK

I took the photo with a SLR, i dont have a scanner so my only option was to take a pic with my digital camera of the origianal photo, which explains the poor quality, but still you can tell what it is, and its quite a rare thing to see Aurora from where I am.