Perseverance

Perseverance Rover being 'sky craned ' down onto the surface of Mars.  (simulation) Credit: JPL/NASA-CALTECH 

" Congratulations to the NASA Perseverance Rover scientfic and engineering teams for the technically spectacular and safe landing of the rover in the Jezero Crater on Mars. The rover will use its onboard equipment to search for the fossilised remnants of ancient life in the Martian regolith and rocks. It will also collect and deposit rock samples for later collection and return to Earth. Finding incontrovertible evidence of the simplest forms of bacterial life on Mars would be sufficient to prove that given the right environment life can spontaneously arise throughout the universe. This would be as significant as determining the Earth is not flat and is in orbit around the Sun". - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

First image sent back by the Perseverance Rover from Jezero Crater. The image was taken using one of the rover's hazard cameras. The image is partially obscured by dust and low res.Credit:JPL/NASA-CALTECH 

Illustration of Perseverance at work on the Martian Surface Credit : JPL/NASA-CALTECH

https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8865/touchdown-nasas-mars-perseverance-rover-safely-lands-on-red-planet/

Saturn Reprise from 2017

 

Saturn at a better altitude in 2017 - 127mm Meade Apo Refractor and QHY5-11 colour planetary camera. Pip Stakkert

" As the distance between Mars and Earth increases, the disc presented by the red planet decreases and is now much reduced from that imaged in autumn 2020. At the moment many of the other planets are in conjunction with the Sun and consequently practically unobservable. The Covid 19 pandemic and the recent run of challenging weather here on the UK's eastern coast has kept activity at the Jodrell Plank Observatory  to an absolute minimum. With time on his hands and a mask on his face, Pip Stakkert reprocessed this image of Saturn taken back in 2017 when weather conditions and the ringed planet's altitude conspired to provide the Jodrell Plank Team with an excellent imaging opportunity. The recently acquired Topaz Denoise software was used to sharpen this image. The dark 'Cassini Division' within the ring system is now clearly defined in this reprocessed image". Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Capella

 

Alpha Aurigae-Capella -stack of 60 second exposures at ISO 1600 - Canon 600d DSLR and EOS 18-55 lens at f=18mm all on a Star Adventurer equatorial mount.

"During the winter months, the constellation Auriga rides high in the Northern Hemisphere sky. It's brightest star Capella is in fact a gravitationally bound star system comprising four stars in binary pairs. Two are bright yellow stars each with a mass 2.5 times that of the sun. Two small red dwarf stars make up the other binary pair. Capella is a relatively nearby star system only 43 light years distant from our planet". Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.