Hawksmoor

Yes Jim,  I'm a bit worried  as they have left a lot of sodiums all around me but changed the one outside my house to LEDs.  As LED lamps are cheaper to run I'm hoping they dont leave mine on over night whilst turning out the rest. It did go out at midnight last night but you never know what they have planned.  I dont think it would affect my astrophotography much but it would stop my wife from getting a good nights sleep. The  lamp is virtually in line with our bedroom window.  She  is a very poor sleeper anyway and  is very light sensitive.  Keeping my fingers crossed that after midnight it will remain astronomically dark in our bit of  Oulton Broad.

George

You should be okay George, all the minor road lights are going off, I think it was a one off over the Christmas period.  This changeover will take awhile as it seems to be a bit haphazard, one on each street every month or so   lol

Jim

Hooray it's just gone off!

So I'm off to bed.

George

Very nice. Thanks for pulling up the images, George. I find that I like the Hind's Crimson Star a bit better because it is more challenging to see and glows a deeper red. I was stoked to get an image of it!

Cheers,

Reggie  

In your image Hind's star 'glows like an ember' Great image!

Thanks, George. I shot it at prime focus with my 127mm Mak and tweaked the exposure to bring out the color and not wash it out by too much luminance.

Here is one of my astronomy-related music videos. I use these as educational tools as well as cool vehicles for my music:

I incorporated some video from one of my piano performances at the local hall, some stock astronomy footage, studio shots, and some of own space cam footage and processed images of Mars. I hope you like it  

Hi Reggie

Your video and sound track are excellent. You are a very talented man! Thank you for your kind words re my bits and pieces on my blogs.  Merry Christmas to you from a very cloudy Lowestoft.

Thanks, George. Merry Christmas to you and yours from balmy Macon, Georgia in the southeastern U.S.  

George just done the one shot, just spent longer getting it on here then setting up the obsy

You got it in the right place.




 

Excellent and well done!

George

Thanks George but really it's the equipment, spot on and an excellent camera but am really chuffed

Jim

Surely your great-great-grandmother went to live in the United Kingdom for work reasons with her family of origin, Southern Italy is still an economically depressed area today. My great-grandfather had emigrated to the USA with his brother, they had a bar in El Paso, he came back but his brother didn't and nothing more was heard. Surely the Sicilian cuisine is worth trying, the "cassata" is quite famous!
We have gotten used to hot summers for some time, the problem is when it rains little in winter (as in Sicily, here too the rains are winter with even a long summer drought), sometimes they ration us water because the dams they are half empty ... ..... The fires have done great damage in the Montiferru area, where I am, they have not touched us, but it is a chronic problem that we have here every summer. Unfortunately, the lands of the Mediterranean this summer were an immense brazier.
The warm sea gives us winters that are quite mild, in Cagliari, my hometown, it snows every 30 years; when I was a child my dream was to see snow, then in 1985 (I was 17) it snowed at the beginning of January (10 cm of snow!) and the city literally went crazy with joy, I hadn't even gone to school ( here we are not equipped for snow and in these cases everything stops)! However believe me, I don't feel like taking a bath in January!
I saw some satellite photos, the Sahara is really dark, saving up the money it is better to spend the Christmas holidays there with a small travel telescope, achromatic or apochromatic like the 80/400 for example. I did not know that in New Zealand they had a great sky, you are also lucky enough to have the same language and in addition the climate is always mild, at least in the North Island. The problem is that it is the antipodes, the flight by plane is long and certainly costs.
Surely there is a lot to see with you as far as art is concerned, I did not know about East Anglia. When I was a kid my father bought a book about Westminster Abbey, I watched it several times, live it must be much more beautiful.
Take care, clear skies and good observations: Jupiter is making furore at the telescope!

Agostino.

Westminster Abbey is a fantastic building to visit and many famous people are buried there including Isaac Newton. I also enjoy visits to the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. It is fantastic to walk in rooms where Samuel Pepys, Christopher Wren and Newton would have once walked.

Enjoy Jupiter and Saturn. Weather permitting I hope to image them with my 127mm refractor in the next few weeks.

best regards George

True, I did not remember that Newton was buried in Westminster, I remembered the queens Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart. The Greenwich observatory is also worth seeing, glorious pages of astronomy have been written there. We hope that you too have some summer temperatures and good weather, I saw that in September the temperature in London can even reach 28º; I can tell you that when it rains continuously here for about ten days I get bored and I begin to grumble! A 127 mm refractor like yours deserves to be used, I wish you really nice weather in this last month of summer, on the contrary we are waiting for next month to start raining after three months that it only did a few drops! Take care and above all clear skies !!!

Agostino.

Yes. Venus is often a bit low and a bit too far west for me using my 127mm. refractor which sits at the rear of our house between our sitting room extension to the west and a tall hedge to the east. Add weather into the equation and Venus is only a viable imaging proposition once in a blue moon!

George

If you take the Jolly Sailors at Pakefield as my center in the East I have a good view North thru East to South, a fair bit of sky when theres no cloud  

If I go early morning comet or mercury hunting with my mobile rig I relocate to the Fish Labs Car Park. I guess a very similar view from your garden.

Here are some one-off shots I took of Mars and the Seven Sisters tonight with my DSLR. We're having a string of beautiful nights. I'm taking full advantage!

Regards,

Reggie  

Hi Reggie

Really nice images. Stars and planet nice and sharp! A real pretty event. Mars continues to please the eye. Hope the string of beautiful nights continues for you.

Weather here on the UK east coast remains volatile. Early this evening it started off well. No cloud and fairly stable. Sirius, which is low on the southern horizon at my latitude, was not 'twinkling' which generally signals a good night for imaging. I did notice a hint of cloud east over the sea and sadly within an hour this had moved on shore and astronomy was off for the night. I need to move to a desert at altitude!

Best regards George

Thanks, George. Hang in there. When those clear nights return, if you can, GO FOR IT  

I am well and hope you are too, my friend.  Been having some really nice skies my way with less pollution and aircraft (but still those bothersome geo satellites). I can't wait to see your images. I've taken several widefield shots of the waxing crescent and Venus. Did you see Venus cross the Pleiades earlier this month? I got some cool pictures of that.

Clear skies,

Reggie

Glad you are keeping well. I did see your sequence of images of Venus crossing the Pleiades. I thought they were a very good set. I missed the event as weather was poor here. My last good weather window was either the 28th or 29th and just before the Venus Pleiades conjunction. I saw Elon's Starlink Satellites for the first time on that night. It was quite spectacular as they crossed the sky on either side of the ISS.

I've also noted the reduction in planes and improvement in air quality. I also observed that the signal to noise ratings on PHD whilst I was 'guiding' the other night were really good. I guess that is a measure of good seeing and improved air quality.

I've been processing the images today but not quite finished them. Tomorrow I'm providing support for my grand children on 'lock down' in three separate towns around the UK. I'm hosting an internet 'art class' for them. My partner did a 'cooking class' for them today.

Hopefully, I will get some time to finish my image processing tomorrow and get them 'posted'.

Best regards and stay safe.

George

I'll be waiting with bated breath, lol!

Like it George, I just looked behind me and although quite light Venus is there in all her glory, last night I really got annoyed as the Moon and Venus was only a fingers with away from each other and although very cloudy I attempted to take a photo.  I gave up after half an hour as if the Moon was in the clear Venus was not so it ended up either one or the other.  As said I can see Venus but the Moon is a little far off, watch this space

Jim

Lovely sky George, watching the Moon moving towards Venus, hipe you are out there watching this

Jim

The pictures may be blurry, but the effort was pure and I'm sure very exciting  I am well and doing more observing than imaging these days.  I did just get a nice image of M42 (an annual shot) and I'm looking forward to get a few pics of the lunar eclipse this weekend. I'm wishing you the clearest skies for this event. Oh, and how was the cold dive for charity?

Hi Reggie

Glad you're ok. Hope you have clear skies for the Lunar eclipse, I might try and image it if the weather looks good. As for the cold water dip on Christmas morning; well the good news was we had sunshine and no wind, the bad news was the hard frost and air temperature of 1 degree celsius. It was so cold!  My partner stayed in the water for 10 minutes, I managed 2 minutes but she had the benefit of a wet suit. 

All the best George

Haha! The pictures say it all, George! Hope you both had a cup of hot cocoa by the fire afterwards   Thanks for posting the pics and best wishes with the eclipse. Our forecast is chilly but clear after rains pass through!

Cheers,

Reggie  

Hi Jim

Nice to hear from you. Are you well? And is your Observatory fully restored and up and running after last year's  storm damage?

George

Thanks, the observatory is being cleaned of whatever made its home there but I have yet to get to grips with the hardware that will happen in the next few weeks.  Done a reorg of the garden which took some time and then had a stroke, am okay now, spent a week in JPH, they looked after me well.  Will be good to get all behind me and start looking to the sky again, good to hear from you.
Jim

Sorry to hear that you have been unwell. Glad you are on the mend and hope you are stargazing soon. All the best.

George.

Hi Reggie

Sadly the weather has been pretty terrible since the 28th Feb so didn't get to see them at closest. I dod get to see the Aurora from Lowestoft on the 28th which is extremely rare from Latitude 52 north. Did you get any photos of the conjunction?

Best regards George

I'm glad you asked, lol. I posted these in the imaging forum:

Prime focus shots through my 127mm Mak. Providence parted the clouds for me!

Thanks Reggie. I don't remember seeing these before but old age is definitely making me a bit forgetful! 🤣

Excellent work to capture the Jovian moons. Huge dynamic range there, which is always tricky to deal with.  I bet you are pleased with these  I  would be!

Hope you are keeping well and getting better weather than we are. If the snow holds off until after the weekend, we shall go to the Astronomy Show in Kettering this coming Saturday.  It is a long drive for us oldies, being halfway across the UK from where we live on the East Coast. Our daughter lives nearer to Kettering than we do, so we will stop a night with her and her family on the way.

Best regards from me and Mrs H.

A friend of ours lives on the Shetland Isles and she has spotted one in her garden.

These aren't particularly uncommon in UK - I saw one in my brother's garden in Liverpool about 20 years ago. 

Although they can occasionally overwinter in northern Europe, they don't breed this far north, so basically any that you see will have been bred further south and migrated from there. 

Just discovered this thread.

Humming Bird Moths are annual visitors to our flower garden in mid Denmark. 55N.

BTW, close conjunction of Venus & Jupiter before dawn on April 30 for us in the States (about 14 arcminutes apart). I don't think you'll be able to see from your latitude though.

Hi Reggie - very nice to hear from you. I look forward to seeing your images of the conjunction. I'm not sure whether it is visible from Lowestoft or whether I could get out of bed before dawn. I do however, have a very fine eastern horizon out over the North Sea.

I am still getting to grips with my recently acquired modded DSLR and Triband filter.  Its easy enough to produce Ha saturated (very red) images but getting just the right amount of red to make an interesting composition is quite difficult particularly when going widefield.  Hats off to the people on SGL that produce such splendid narrow band images, it is certainly not easy!

I attach a copy of one of my first images taken with the modded Canon 200d DSLR and a Triband filter and a Sigma EX camera lens at about f=15mm F5.6 (ISO800). 2hrs worth of 5minute lights stacked, cropped and processed using Affinity Photo software. The  lights were taken before the street lights went out so you can see how well the filter deals with LED street Lighting.  I think I could improve the stars by using my unmodded camera and combining images from both.  A project in process.

Best regards from George

Brill, George!

Yes that Lowestoft and it still has Pleasurewood Hills open during the warmer months. High winds and tide today so currently enjoying a bit of local flooding. Our house on high land so not affected. A few stars visible tonight so better weather on the way? Fingers crossed.

George awaiting sleep in bed in Lowestoft.

I used to visit Pleasurewood Hills every summer when I lived in England. Loved it. Sorry to hear the weather is rough! I live in California now and we are having a lot of rain! Shock!

In the words of 'Woody Bear' " Pleasurewood Hills is your biggest day out ever"! However, even in the rain, California probably offers a much bigger day out. Glad you enjoyed your visits to Lowestoft in the past. Only been to LA in California once long ago, had an excellent weekend on route to Auckland NZ. As a 'fossil nerd', La Brea Tar pits a highlight for me. Sea lions and pelicans in the harbour pretty special too.

Best regards George

Nice to hear from you Jim. I haven't done much stargazing in the last few weeks. Weather and Christmas have combined to keep my scopes in their cases. Did get one night with my bins and saw a very bright and beautiful Geminid meteor. It just dropped out of the sky and fell down below the Great Bear's tail. Real pretty thing!

Merry Christmas to you and your family.

George

Hi George, just had a one night outing myself, the dew stopped that night in it's tracks after an hour, since then it has been either the snow or rain so that is it till the new year.  Thanks for the Christmas greetings, wish you and the family the same, I'm afraid we don't bother with Christmas, no children and being a distance from any relatives we tend to have a quite time, this year we are away to Switzerland for  a week courtesy of Belle Coaches, a small village enclosed by glaciers so will be getting heavy gear on.  Okay, take care and enjoy the next couple of week and don't get cold out with your bino's 

Jim 

Have a great time in Switzerland, stay safe and warm.

George

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, George  

Reggie

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you Reggie.  I am currently sitting by a fire in our house, eating a tangerine and working up the courage to take a dip in the North Sea on Christmas Day with my wife and youngest son.  Swimming in the sea off a local beach on Christmas Day for charitable causes is a local tradition which we have not yet actively participated in. The sea is very cold at this time of year.

All the best George

I get chills just thinking about that cold dip! Best wishes to you and your family  

The countdown has begun!

5

4

3

2

1.........  

Good luck! Looks like it will be clouded out here.

Thanks for the good wishes. Got to see it through the eyepiece and take some images, sadly the hazy high level cloud got me in the end, but my partner brought me out a big gin and tonic which cheered me up!  Not use to catching a tan pursuing this hobby!

Thanks for posting this. I just happened to see it, and it raised my intrigue to have a look at the OU website.

I've just signed up and downloaded the free course on the moon. The others look good too.

(Looking forward to getting out and trying another sketch tonight now).

Many thanks. 

You're welcome.

ooh thanks for this - looks good - as do the others (galaxies etc).

Well I waited and waited for the clouds to clear, but they just crawled up the coast skimming the land and by midnight I gave up.  I was all set for a view of Vesta myself if possible that is but it was mainly a photo shoot and check later.  A bit miffed but as I have installed Vesta in Stellarium I might still have a go at it if clear tonight.  This will my last weekend with the NEQ6 and 80mm scopes, hopefully next weekend I will be using a CGE Pro and the 11" RASA

Jim

Sad you were affected by cloud. The couple of miles we are further inland than you seems to have made a difference this last week. Though my images from last night were not all cloud free. Managed to stack and process some of the images I took and should have captured Vesta. It's definitely there somewhere in amongst a  widefield containing a lot of stars!  I've run one image through astrometry.net so have some markers to go by. The new kit arrival must be an exciting prospect. I look forward to seeing some really deep images from you soon!

George

Morning George, yes I ran them through the plate solve and like yourself got markers but again so many stars  :).  Yes am excited about the arrival but have worries about weight and strength of floor so a wait and see game.

Jim

Certainly missed the snow but did get the rain whilst down town.

Easy to miss Jim.  It literally snowed in our backyard for a minute. Not enough to make a snowman!  Plenty of rain and no stars again tonight. I still haven't tried out my Mark2 homade spectrometer. I guess I shall have to be patient.

George

Quote

Certainly missed the snow but did get the rain whilst down town.

Yes all clouded out till maybe midnight tonight so may give it a try then, am getting impatient to get all the cameras focused then it will be perfect

Agree, still is but today I part dismantled my mount so hopefully back up by the weekend

Hi Jim, strangely I also had dismantled my mount only to be presented with the best run of clear nights for months. Frustrating hobby astronomy! Anyway in Lowestoft freezing fog has settled as the weather norm so no longer missing a rare imaging opportunity.

Best regards George

Thanks George, yes is frustrating, hope to get the whole setup sorted by end of play today.  Took a drive over to Kessingland for a meal last night, knew with the fog it was going to be quite

Jim

Wunderbar! I'm glad you had a nice time. The experience transcended the language barrier!

Prost!

Reggie

Hi Reggie. I'm back home now and have clear skies overhead. Just been out in the backyard with my big binoculars. I'm pretty sure that I glimpsed M1 with averted vision. If so it was a first with bins for me. 

Now off to bed as all the travelling has worn me out.

Best regards George

Clear skies! Hooray! I'm out observing tonight myself, mostly clear here. I have both my 127" Mak and 150" reflector out. Glad you made it back safely. Have a good rest!

Cheers,

Reggie

Great report. I love watching the ISS, too. The Milky Way must be gorgeous from your location. I live in a small city with a Bortle scale of about 5, but sometimes I can get away to the country and take in our galaxy in all its glory. Love the idea of having a meteor radar in the shed!

Thanks for your kind comment. You can't best a shed for versatility! Ours multi-venues as : an artist's studio, a kiln room, a craftroom, a lab and control room for the LVST (The Lowestoft Very Small radio Telescope). All accommodated in a cosy 4 square metres!

Best regards George

That's wonderful, George! I just may follow your lead 

Haha i am over run with slugs ?

Go out after dark with a bucket of salt pick em up an put in bucket.

Do this about 4 nights on the trot and you will eradicate most of them.

that is cruel