Let the Hydrogen - alpha experiment begin.

After nearly a twenty year wait, I finally get my hands on a hydrogen alpha telescope.

It's going to take a bit of fiddling and tweaking to get a decent image, but so far so good.

I managed to take a few very basic afocal camera shots today, crude but with promise!

Also, this daytime solar astronomy lark is handy for topping up the vitamin D levels!

"Can you speak Venusian"

An amazing array of astronomical eccentrics. 

Or "Independent thinkers", as Sir Patrick Moore used to call them.

Well worth watching on a cloudy evening.

Astronomy typed memories from 2006

 

I well remember taking these observations, the telescope used was a tiny 40mm refractor. 

Even though the telescope was really a toy, it still returned some lovely images of the lunar surface.

Sunspots AR2822 and AR2823.

A quick solar capture from this morning's observing session.  

The Nikon D70 and the Tal1 refractor are a good combination. 

Great to see such a prominent grouping, in the form of AR2822. 

The Story of Palomar, 1948

Highlights from SOHO's 25 Years in Space.

Beautiful images from the SOHO satellite.

Learn more about this amazing satellite in these links:

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/soho/in-depth/

https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/

Weather satellite image - 18/02/21

 

Clear skies this morning, with looming cloud on horizon. 

A bit warmer than last week, but still wooly hat weather.

Weather satellite images - 03/02/21

Mostly blue skies here, bit cold, Sun shining brightly, gibbous waning Moon in the west.

Beautiful February morning.

Weather satellite image: 02/02/21.

Looks like most of the UK is hidden under a veil of cloud this morning. 

Though parts of Mediterranean coastline look fairly cloud free. 

Not a bad image considering the weather satellite camera is some 530 miles above our heads!

Weather satellite image. 30/01/21.

This mornings weather fax. 

Downloaded from the NOAA 18 weather satellite, via my ham radio and decoded with weather data decoding software.

Pembrokeshire looks clearish this morning.

Clouds moving in from the east, bringing cold weather,

Mars 2020 apparition... A few drawings.

The 2020 Mars apparition has so far  been a bit tricky.  Many nights of bad seeing, and lots of cloudy evenings. 

On the whole I have only been able to capture the odd evening of Mars viewing. 

But those evenings you see above, more than made up for the lousy weather.