Peter Lewis

Yes, 5 uninterrupted hours certainly helped last night.

M51 is very high so not impacted by moonlight. 5 hours of uninterrupted shooting from midnight.

I targeted areas well away from the Moon. Fortunately the mist never returned.

There are fewer tickets available for UCL games as more tickets are allocated to sponsors etc. Also, the demand will be higher than normal given the opposition.

It's good they allocated more to the ballot as that gives a fairer chance to those who can't sit on their computer in a queue all day.

The M81/2 Group is one of the closest galaxy groups to our own Local Group, located approximately 12 million light-years away. Messier 81 (Bode’s Galaxy): A massive, "grand design" spiral galaxy and the group's brightest member. It contains over 200 globular clusters and a supermassive black hole. Messier 82 (Cigar Galaxy): An edge-on "starburst" galaxy. Its exceptionally high rate of star formation is triggered by tidal interactions with M81.

The Whirlpool Galaxy is a "grand-design" spiral galaxy located in the constellation Canes Venatici. It is one of the most studied and photographed objects in the night sky. M51 is famous for its gravitational interaction with a smaller companion galaxy, NGC 5195 (M51b). This interaction has triggered intense star formation along its prominent spiral arms. Composition: It contains an estimated 100 billion stars and has a supermassive black hole at its core.

Wow! A completely clear night and TEN hours of continuous 'shooting' at some cracking galaxies (described in ALT). The Dwarf3 smartscope was quite hot at the end!
#astronomy #astrophotography @stormhour.com @photohour.bsky.social

Arsenal could end up playing them 5 times!

Well done Newcastle. A repeat at the weekend?

Still a bit of atmospheric colour as it begins to rise in the east.

Tonight's Moon on the rise. 98.1% waning gibbous!
#astronomy #astrophotography @stormhour.com @photohour.bsky.social

There's many safe ways to photograph the Sun but that normally involves a decent white light filter and good zoom on a camera or, in this case, a long focal length scope. Phone cameras these days can be very sophisticated.

Used my 8 inch telescope, attached a solar safety filter and my phone.

Since August 2024. It's definitely nicer here than other places not worth mentioning!

It's been pretty good so far since Meteorological spring arrived!

Good afternoon from Sunny London! I spot some spots!
#astronomy #astrophotography @stormhour.com @photohour.bsky.social

🙂🟠

It's certainly the reason we're still here. A defence shield against all sorts.

Yes, the Moon is always fascinating. Always changing yet always the same!

Indeed. Lovely undulating clouds

Sure is, thanks.

Captured by a Dwarf3 smart scope. 320 x 0.5 second exposures and stacked.

The orange colour of my last post has long since gone as the waning gibbous Moon (99.6%) gains height.
#astronomy #astrophotography @stormhour.com @photohour.bsky.social

🤣

Very nice. No blood red moon over here but orange comes close!

Tonight's rising ex-Wolf Moon! Still very full but actually a 99.7% waning gibbous! A glorious deep orange glow at the moment but the colour will soon fade
#astronomy #astrophotography @stormhour.com @photohour.bsky.social

If only you had a triple word score with that in scrabble!

Neither than I though I smile and embrace it these days rather than get all snotty about it and insist to all and sundry it's a 'perigee-syzygy'!

I bet you hate the term Supermoon, an astrologer creation adopted by the media to support efforts to raise awareness amongst the 'proletariat' 😉

They are quite widely known and used and have been for generations so that organisations like NASA, the Royal Observatory and others seem happy to use them even if they don't meet your standards, apparently.

The full moon names seem to be a tradition for so long I don't see why they are 'getting' ridiculous.

The Mirror is like most online media outlets. They need clicks to survive so they all bait and provoke.

They're a bit of fun. It shows the rotation of the Earth (stars are fixed) but also shows just how many flights overhead in a relative small portion of my sky.