Back to the sky-Christmas day

Jupiter and the moon have their monthly assignation. Tweaked the lunar image to show the different coloured rocks on the lunar surface. The top image of the moon is from the same original as the other with Jupiter but has the saturation reduced. One may be tending towards"cheap pizza" but I think it shows off the colour differences better.

Interesting weekend. I'm not a twitcher (have neither the knowledge or the money) but I did enjoy chasing two local rarities - the Egyptian Goose at Manor Farm and then the Cattle Egret first at Manor Farm, then it came to Haversham - it was nice to be able to walk to a twitch!. The Orange Tip Butterfly was at Linford reserve

This was the bund yesterday That's a strip of comparatively dry land on Linford Lake that is a good habitat for all manner of water birds. It has been pretty much submerged for the last 2-3 weeks (about the whole of the time I've had a permit). It looks to be recovering now so I'm looking forward to all sorts of goodies.

Another trip to HESC today. Just missed a torrential downpour with thunder and lightning.
The Little Grebe was actually yesterday by the woodland hide - I'll keep trying to get the perfect profile.

I was alerted about the Hobby yesterday, and saw it flying over the far side of the lake. Today a couple in the near hide spotted this one in a tree over to the right hand side of the hide.

Being a beginner at this game I'm bound to be confused by LBJs. I suspected this might be a Lesser Whitethroat but a chap at the site thought it was a Garden Warbler. I'm happy to believe that. (apparently considered opinion is that it is now a spotted flycatcher) Sounds good to me

Here's another example of what you can do while waiting for a clear night. This was at the Hanson Environmental Study Centre - fantastic place.

BlueTit gif

I do other stuff now and again.

Further notes on the conjunction

Getting Closer

An image with 200mm lens. 5sec @ f8 showing Jupiter with Io Ganymede, Callisto and Venus.

A video showing their setting tonight - nicely shows atmospheric dimming at the horizon is approached. (the image shift part way through is where I has to stop for a minute or so to change batteries)

Not so much the Moon (artistically out of focus) but the way the sky turns in shades of blue from day to night.

The old moon in the new moon's arms

Quite pleased with my montage showing how earthshine should look. Now I have to do it for real. Sounds like a bit of extreme HDR.

Around Aurigae & Cass

 

 A couple of shots of clusters & nebulae together. NGC 1893 with IC410 in Auriga, and M52 beside the Bubble Nebula in Cassiopeia. Only 4x10 min subs for the Bubble and 8 for the IC410

Playing catch-up with Pete

Pete R were talking the other night about how the same part of the sky suited our observatories. Here's another example from last night. Compare with https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx6f0xXZXAx_HVRUQto7WM68JciB-eFff0aQRzq5ilfdAvyuXTakkS75z4XURjhDp9ml-DjVxiMN-f3K4ZZwRH0c9SGXj_eQCA8t4iBcjFQINm8JNHYbJDKzMPEg3B_vCm2CkQifWkotA/s1600/sh2-274.jpg
Mine is 8" f4 newtonian on EQ6. 7x10 min. Cropped.

A couple of shots from February

Jelly Monkey and a cluster

Here's a shot with the 200mm lens at f4. It shows cluster M35 with neigbour NGC2158 along with fainter nebulae IC443 The Jellyfish nebula and NGC 2174 the Monkey Head Nebula.. 22x5mins at 800iso.