Hawksmoor

Just to say thank you to FLO for hosting SGL and to all of the members who post and bring a bit more joy into my life and the world. Mrs H and I send our best wishes to you all  this Christmas.🌙🌞🪐🌟

Last night the sky was very stable for an hour or so. I'm sure that I could see the whole Veil Nebula using averted vision and my Nikon 8x40 bins. Tonight sadly I'm back to cloud and dropping temperatures. Oh to be an astro-imager in warmer southern climes!

Last night's 2 day old crescent Moon - a real pretty view from our kitchen.

Lovely afternoon so went for a walk. Saw a green woodpecker and the sun felt warm on my old back. Lowestoft will get snow on Sunday according to Metcheck.

Mrs Hawksmoor and I are booked in to get our first Covid Vaccine injections on Sunday  - so  we are hoping the snow does not intervene.

Lovely clear night in Lowestoft this evening. Been trying to spot the comet in Cassiopeia and or image it with Camera on Star Adventurer eq mount. Certainly couldn't spot it through my 11x80 bins so maybe tomorrow I might find it on an image.

Nighty night Stargazers.

Lovely night in Lowestoft. Daughter and 3 grandchildren staying with us. Showed them lots of binary stars, M14, M57 and the Andromeda galaxy group through my 127mm refractor. They really enjoyed some nice views. Sadly the grandchildren were too young and tired to view the moon. Took some quick high ISO and noisy snaps of the galaxies so they can take home a memory of a beautiful warm evening in our garden.

Lovely night in Lowestoft. Milky Way very clear over our house. Too tired tonight to get out my scopes but have spent an hour looking through my binoculars. Must be very clear tonight as, for the first time, was able to see the globular star cluster M2 with my 11x80 bins hand held. Quite low to the south from my backyard and I pick up quite a bit of light pollution in that direction and altitude tHink I picked up Neptune but need more magnification to discern a disc. The weathermen say tomorrow night will be good, so if I get a good night's sleep tonight, I might go for an imaging session after midnight tomorrow! Night night all. 

Lovely starry night in Lowestoft tonight!

Messing about with Lunar images in Image Composite Editor. Looks cold in our garden but even bleaker at the South Pole.

Moon and Jupiter conjunction as viewed from our backyard tonight is a real pretty thing!

Moon balanced on top of a parasol. Old bloke with an iphone

Moon quite beautiful in broken cloud above Lowestoft tonight.

Moon tonight looked beautiful through my 11x80mm. binoculars!

Mrs H and I had a great day, today at the Practical Astronomy Show  Kettering. Excellent venue, interesting talks and lots of exhibitors with great kit to look at and buy? I resisted a fan cooled colour CMOS camera but I'm sure my resolve not to buy anymore kit is weakening!

George back home in Lowestoft

Mrs H planted out the petunias this week. Gales have since battered the east coast. It's no Midsummer Nights Dream in our backyard right now! The LVST yagi aerial is blowin' in the wind, the aerial is blowin' in the wind.

Night all from Lowestoft too close the sea.

Mrs H safely returned from knee surgery and now is the 'upgraded model' with artificial knee and hip!😍

I'm am currently happily married to a Cyborg 'off world' kick boxer!

All a bit 'Blade Runner' in Lowestoft, so this year 'blurry images' of Saturn will have to wait.

My birthday today. Yay!

Spent the day making arty farty metal stuff in the backyard under a very blue sky. Mrs H made lobster linguine and caramel panna cotta (served sequentially and separately) for tea and I watched a fullish Moon rise through the window as we ate.

All in all a very fine day for an old bloke in Lowestoft next the sea.

Nearest I've been to 'imaging' for some time. Balancing my little Canon compact camera on top of my barbecue and getting a shakey mov. video clip - converted to avi and then Registaxed and manipulated to remove any direct relationship with reality.  I give you my technicolor version of last night's Moon Venus conjunction, which was a very pretty thing to witness!

Nice aurora display over the Shetlands last night. Good views from the new webcam location at Eshaness Lighthouse as well as from old faithfull Cliffcam 3. All at www.Shetland webcams.

Nice auroral glow on Cliff Cam3  _ 60degrees North Shetland tonight.

Nice bright aurora over Lerwick. Cliff cam One on Shetland.org worth a look at the moment.

Nice crisp transparent moonless night to bring in November. Had my mini-rig up and running taking some images of the Andromeda group of galaxies with my Altair Astro 66mm Doublet and Canon 600d camera. Now in bed thawing out!

Nighty night Stargazers.

Nice evening but too much moonlight. As I don't have narrow band filters taking astro 'snaps' other than of the Moon was not on, so I decided to capture low res spectra for Capella, Aldebaran, Regulus and Arcturus. Lots of fun and only out for an hour so didn't get cold. Struggling a bit to get my head around using VSpec to adjust spectrum profiles to take camera response into account. I guess I need to keep reading the online manual, lessons and avi clips.

Nice night until the fog rolled up. Mars below the Pleiades very photogenic, so took a few snaps with a tripod mounted DSLR. 1sec exposures at ISO6400 and f=55mm. Lovely full Moon over my hedge.The night sky from a semi rural location is a very beautiful thing!

Night night Stargazers.

Nice to view tonight Antares and the claws of the scorpion just above my southern horizon as seen  from our backyard. Had a fledgling robin fly in through the open bedroom window. Bird now safely back with mum and dad in our garden. All's well that ends well!

Nighty night stargazers.