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| Newly discovered Comet. Euclid Space Telescope. Image Credits: ESA snd the Sky@Night. |
" This discovery is particularly interesting in that Euclid was not purposed to find comets, the comet found has a non ecliptic trajectory which is unusual and that this is the first comet discovered by a space telescope. We live in exciting and interesting times" - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory the UK's most easterly Astronomical Observatory.
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| M11 Open Star Cluster. Seestar S30 in EQ mode. 15x60sec exp. |
" Kurt found this data on the Seestar internal drive and was one of the last data captures from his hotel balcony in Giardini Naxos Sicily and September 2026.
The Wild Duck Cluster seen at the centre of the image is one of the densest populated clusters with an estimated 2900 stars. It is located just over 6000 light years distant from the Earth. The bright central stars are arranged in a 'V' shape, reminiscent of a flight of ducks!". - Joel Cairo the CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.
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| El Gourdo image credit NASA, ESA and CSA |
" We occasionally come across interesting images which are so fabulous that we repost them. This JWST image of a massive group of galaxies in the Constellation Phoenix is visible in the southern hemisphere. Neither Kurt or myself had heard of this group so this was a first for us" - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.
Observations relating to the above JWST image made by Gary Gemini the JPO's Coms Officer:
JWST View of El Gordo
"This image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) shows El Gordo (officially named ACT-CL J0102-4915 or SPT-CL J0102-4915), one of the most massive and extreme galaxy clusters in the cosmic universe.
Location & Constellation
Constellation: Phoenix (a constellation in the southern sky).
Distance: Located approximately 7.3 to 7.6 billion light-years away from Earth. The light captured in this NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) image left the cluster when the universe was only about half its current age (around 6.2 billion years after the Big Bang).
Key Features & Fascinating Details
"El Gordo" Means "The Fat One":
The cluster was given the nickname "El Gordo" (Spanish for "The Fat One") by astronomers due to its immense size and mass. It contains hundreds of individual galaxies and is estimated to have a mass equivalent to 3 quadrillion (3×1015) suns. It is the most massive galaxy cluster known to exist in that cosmic era.
Gravitational Lensing (Nature's intoCosmic Telescope):
Because El Gordo is so colossal, its gravity bends and warps the fabric of spacetime around it. This creates a gravitational lens that magnifies, distorts, and stretches the light from even more distant galaxies lying far behind it into long streaks and arcs.
Prominent Arcs in the Image:
The Fishhook (El Anzuelo): The bright reddish/orange curved swoosh seen toward the upper center/left is a background red giant galaxy whose light has been severely lensed into an arc. JWST's instruments revealed that its red hue is caused by vast amounts of cosmic dust.
The Thin One (La Flaca): Near the middle-left of the cluster is a razor-thin, pencil-like streak created by another background galaxy distorted by the cluster's mass.
A Collision in Progress:
El Gordo is not just a static cluster; it is actually two giant galaxy clusters colliding and merging together at high speeds, spewing superheated gas into intergalactic space.
JWST Diffraction Spikes:
The sharp, eight-pointed bright stars in the foreground are stars within our own Milky Way galaxy. Their distinctive starburst pattern is a signature artifact produced by JWST's hexagonal mirror alignment".
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| The LVST (Lowestoft Very Small *radio* Telescope) display screen. The two raised dB single lines, showing yellow and red, far right of screen, represent two meteor plasma reflections occurring in real time and quick succession. |
"Kurt is recovering from COVID and is now testing negative for the infection. As a consequence, his enthusiasm for astronomy has returned and today he has been in the JPO Clean Room assisting Jolene McSquint-Fleming in the fabrication of the bits and pieces for the Seestar Low resolution spectrometer.
Whilst they were in there, The LVST, software defined radio meteor detector was pinging away as radar waves from the French military installation at Dijon were reflected from ablation plasma as meteors entered the atmosphere somewhere south of Lowestoft. There is some debate as to whether this is the result of forward or back scatter. If the former, the meteors are between Dijon and Lowestoft and if the latter they are located south of Dijon. What was noticeable was the recorded data showed very little change in frequency for their duration. This implies, from lack of Doppler Shift, that the track of the meteor was not moving radially with respect to Dijon or Lowestoft .
The weather has not been good over the last few nights but our sponsor, Anita Roberts did see an early morning yellow 'Fireball meteor ' moving from west to east and fast over Lowestoft earlier this month". - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory - The UK's most easterly astronomical Observatory.
"Last night we completed the 3d printing of spectrometer parts and today Kurt painted the inside of the 3 spectrometer hoods with ultra black acrylic paint. Another and final coat of paint will be applied tomorrow, followed by assembly"- Jolene McSquint-Fleming JPO engineer.
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| Two grating holders and one hood 3d printed in the Clean Room at the JPO. |
" Our engineer, Jolene McSquint-Fleming, has moved the project from 'prototype' to 'proof' status. The 'Low resolution spectrometer will comprise of three parts: the grating holder, a holographic printed transmission grating and a hood to minimise stray light and reflections. The 3d printed holder was made using 'ferrous' infill PLA so will affix magnetically to the Seestar S30 in front of it's objective lens. A 4 mm. wide strip of holographic diffraction grating will be bonded with super glue to the studs on the holder. The grating will only partially cover the Seestar's lens and sensor to ensure the Seestar goto and guidance system continue to function and to avoid frame rejection because of false star movements detected. The hood printed from PETG will be painted internally with BLX3.0 light absorbing black paint and glue bonded to the other side of the holder. We intend to manufacture three units using gratings of : 50lines/mm, 80lines/mm and 100lines/mm. We are hoping our collaborator Professor Chrissy H will write a 2d spectral processing app, which does not require both Zero and First Order spectra to be on the Seestar camera sensor at the same time. Both the 50 and 80 lines/mm units allow both spectral orders to fit on the S30 sensor if diagonally orientated. The unit has been designed for use with the S30 but may work as well or better with the S30 Pro and S50 Pro. Subject to this unit working well all details and files will be made available open source." - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.
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| The Helix Planetary Nebula -Data captured from Sicily with Seestar S30 EQ mode LP filter 60x60sec exp. September 2026 |
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| The Helix Nebula captured by ESO's Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA). Credit: ESO/VISTA/J. Emerson. Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit |
" Kurt captured the above images in less than good conditions for astrophotography. The Moon was near full, the hotel lights were full on and Etna, (16 km distant), had just erupted dumping fine ash into the upper atmosphere." - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.
Captured from a balcony from Sicily using a Seestar S30 smart telescope, these images showcase one of the night sky's most iconic and photogenic targets: The Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), also catalogued as Caldwell 63. Often colloquially referred to as the "Eye of God" or the "Eye of Sauron," this celestial masterpiece offers a vivid glimpse into the ultimate fate awaiting Sun-like stars.
The stacked processing highlights the object through two distinct visualization techniques: the RGB Palette (displaying natural broadband colour rendering with striking outer red rings and inner blue-green ionization cores) and the Dual Band SHO Palette (emphasizing narrow-band sulphur, hydrogen-alpha, and oxygen emissions)
Constellation: Situated in the equatorial constellation of Aquarius.
Distance: Approximately 655 light-years (200 parsecs) from Earth, measured with high precision by the Gaia mission. This proximity makes it one of the closest planetary nebulae to our solar system.
Angular Size: Spans an apparent diameter of roughly 16 to 20 arcminutes (extending up to 25 arcminutes in its outermost faint halos). To the observer, it covers an area in the sky roughly half the diameter of the full Moon.
True Spatial Extent: Physically, the main luminous shell measures approximately 2.5 to 3.0 light-years across, while faint outer halos extend even further into the surrounding interstellar medium.
Morphology: While it appears deceptively like a simple glowing ring from our perspective, three-dimensional kinematic and infrared studies reveal that the Helix Nebula is actually a complex bipolar structure (or a dense barrel-shaped torus) viewed at an inclination angle.
Cometary Knots: High-resolution observations of the inner rim reveal tens of thousands of dense, finger-like gas structures known as "cometary knots," each featuring a dense neutral core and a tail pointing away from the central star.
Despite their misleading historical name, planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. The term was coined by 18th-century astronomers because early, low-resolution telescopes made these round, glowing green-blue disks resemble gas giant planets. In reality, they are luminous tombstones marking the death throes of intermediate- to low-mass stars (between roughly 0.8 and 8 solar masses).
The creation of the Helix Nebula followed a specific evolutionary sequence:
The Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) Phase: Millions of years ago, the progenitor star exhausted the hydrogen fuel in its core and expanded into a red giant, subsequently entering the AGB phase where its outer envelope swelled enormously.
Mass Ejection: Unstable thermal pulses caused the star to gently pulsate and shed its outer layers into space at stellar wind velocities ranging between 30 to 40 kilometers per second. This expanding gas shell formed the massive shroud of hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, and oxygen we see today.
The White Dwarf Remnant: Once the outer layers drifted away, the bare stellar core was left behind. This exposed core collapsed into a scorching white dwarf (visible near the exact geometric center of the nebula), with a surface temperature exceeding 110,000 Kelvin.
Fluorescence and Ionization: The newborn white dwarf emits intense, high-energy ultraviolet radiation. This radiation ionizes the surrounding expanding shell of gas, stripping electrons from atoms and causing them to fluoresce brilliantly. The distinct colour zonation—such as the inner blue region ionized by high-energy helium and oxygen, contrasted with the outer red hydrogen-alpha and nitrogen ring—is a direct thermal and chemical response to this intense stellar radiation field".
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| NASA APOD Great Image! |
" Last night Jolene McSquint-Fleming, the JPO Engineer, was out testing the latest iteration of her 50 lines per mm diffraction grating based spectrometer for use with the Seestar S30. Apart from testing the device, developing a standard capture methodology was part of last night's experimentation. She also captured spectra and background star-fields for a range of stellar spectral types". -Joel Cairo CEO of the JPO the UK's most easterly Astronomical Observatory.
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| Jolene's 50 lines/mm grating and prototype 3d printed holder for magnetic attachment in front of the Seestar objective lens |
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| Zero and First order spectra for the star Scheat in Pegasus |
"Exciting news breaking: friend of the JPO, Prof Chrissy H, is working with Jolene 's data to create a low res stellar spectroscopy app which does not require both zero and first order spectra to be on the camera sensor to enable calibration. If this works it will be made available open source as will the 3d print spectrometer grating holder files" - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.
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| The Cave Nebula (Emission Nebula) Seestar S30 LP filter EQ mode 181x60 sec exposures. Credit: Kurt Thrust at the JPO. |
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| Comet 161p Hartley-IRAS. Seestar S30 EQ mode. 30x60 sec exposures. Credit: Pip Stakkert at the JPO. |
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| Single 60 second exposure showing the Cometary Nucleus 'unsmeared by relative motion (very noisy) Credit: Kurt Thrust. |
" The Seestar S30 struggled with this small and faint comet, currently between mag +11 and +14, which is also cruising fairly low in the sky in the Constellation Pegasus. It is a periodic comet and is due to return in 21 years time. The image appears to show a tail but this is a visual effect due to relative motion and the length of exposure over 30 minutes" - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.
Captured: October 11, 2026
Nucleus Size: Comet 161P/Hartley-IRAS possesses a remarkably compact solid core, with an estimated nuclear diameter of approximately 0.4 km (assuming a standard low albedo of 0.04).
Coma and Morphology: Surrounding the nucleus is an active, diffuse dust coma spanning roughly 1 to 3 arcminutes in apparent diameter. Depending on thermal outgassing activity, it displays a condensed central region typical of periodic comets undergoing solar heating.
Spectral Profile: The spectrum of 161P is characterized by a combined solar reflection continuum blended with distinct emission bands from volatile gas species and fine silicate dust particles released as sub-surface ices sublimate.
Distance from Earth: As of mid-October 2026, the comet is positioned at a geocentric distance of approximately 0.57 AU (~85.5 million kilometers), following its recent closest approach to Earth on October 2, 2026, at 0.50 AU (~75.3 million kilometers).
Orbital Period: 161P follows an elongated periodic orbit with a period of 21.46 years.
Perihelion and Aphelion: Its perihelion distance ($q$) is 1.27 AU (bringing it just outside Earth's orbit and inside Mars), while its aphelion distance ($Q$) stretches outward to roughly 14.19 AU, carrying it far beyond the orbit of Saturn.
Eccentricity and Inclination: The orbit features a high eccentricity of 0.836 and a retrogradely inclined plane of 95.8° relative to the ecliptic, giving it a unique dynamical path through the inner Solar System.
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| The Far Side of the Moon. NASA APOD based on Lunar Prospector mosaic imagery from 2011 onwards. |
" I decided to post this NASA mosaic because it shows how different the Lunar far side is from the near side, which we gaze upon from Earth. Also we will never be able to image it from the Jodrell Plank Observatory because the Moon is tidally locked to present the same face to Earth (more or less and other than at the limbs). - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.
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| The Pleiades and crane jib juxtaposition. Google Pixel 8a smartphone handheld. Handshake compensation by AI. |
" Beautiful night last night in Oulton Broad. Jolene, our engineer, captured this rather unusual view of the Pleiades" - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.
Credit: NASA APOD
Explanation: Stickney Crater, the largest crater on the martian moon Phobos, is named for Chloe Angeline Stickney Hall, mathematician and wife of astronomer Asaph Hall. Asaph Hall discovered both the Red Planet's moons in 1877. Over 9 kilometers across, Stickney is nearly half the diameter of Phobos itself, so large that the impact that blasted out the crater likely came close to shattering the tiny moon. This enhanced-color image of Stickney and surroundings was recorded by the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as it passed within some six thousand kilometers of Phobos in March of 2008. Even though the surface gravity of asteroid-like Phobos is less than 1/1000th Earth's gravity, streaks suggest loose material slid down inside the crater walls over time. Light bluish regions near the crater's rim could indicate a relatively freshly exposed surface. The origin of the curious grooves along the surface is mysterious but may be related to tidal stresses experienced by close-orbiting Phobos or the crater-forming impact itself. - NASA
"Unfortunately, our Director Kurt during his recent holiday in Sicily, contracted the latest version of Covid, which bearing in mind his ongoing chronic immune system illness, has knocked him for six. Consequently, posts to the blog have rather dried up. I was very interested in this close up view of the Martian Moon Phobos posted by NASA as a APOD and thought I would share on the blog " ,- Joel Cairo CEO Jodrell Plank Observatory
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| Late September and the Waning Moon casts moonlight and washes out M45 - Seestar S30 |
"A bit cloudy with light pollution in Giardini Naxos tonight - not altogether different to Lowestoft! I noticed that the Moon was quite close to the Pleiades in the night sky" _Kurt Thrust current Director of the JPO- (The UK's most easterly Astronomical Observatory)
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| Harvest Full Moon. Seestar S30 captured from Sicily. |
" The Harvest Moon heralding the changing seasons Summer to Autumn" - Kurt Thrust on holiday in Sicily.
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| The Solar Disc in white light. Seestar S30 3d printed combination filter Green and Baader Astro Solar film ND50. |
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| Image Credit: SOHO solar Observatory. |
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| Mu Cephi, Cepheus. PIRATE robotic telescope BVR filters. Tenerife. Data credit: Open Observatories, Open University, telescope.org. |
" Mu Cephei (Herschel’s Garnet Star) is a bright red supergiant with spectral type M2 Ia. Its line profile spectrum is heavily dominated by low-temperature molecular absorption bands and neutral metal lines, featuring a red-dominated continuum profile.
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| Neptune centre almost enveloped in moonlight from the nearby full Moon. Seestar S30 . Credit: Kurt Thrust from Sicily. |
" The planet Neptune is pretty big in the terms of the Solar System but in the Cosmos is just a whiff of ice and gas". - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory
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| The Swan Nebula or M17 and NGC 6618 in the constellation Sagittarius. Seestar S30 in EQ mode and LP nebula filter. 60x 30 sec exposures. Captured from Sicily. Credit: Kurt Thrust. |
" The Swan Nebula is generally below our southern horizon in Lowestoft. Kurt being on holiday, at a much lower latitude of 38 degrees North, enabled this short capture using the 'travel friendly' Seestar S30 smartscope.
The Swan Nebula is a bright Hll emission nebula located within the constellation Sagittarius. It spans some 15 light years in diameter and is 5000 - 6000 light years distant. Much like the Great Orion Molecular Cloud, the Swan Nebula is the location of active star formation. The open star cluster NGC 6618 is embedded within the nebula and contributes to stellar radiation, which ionizes the hydrogen gas and makes it shine". - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.
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| Get up high enough and you can clearly see the Earth is not 'flat' - Google Pixel 8a smartphone. |
" We dont often post images from other sources but we were intrigued by this one from NASA. It shows a newly created and recently discovered crater on the Moon" - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.
"Officially named McGetchin after pioneering lunar scientist Tom McGetchin.
The crash left a crater, 728 feet wide, that spans the length of two football fields. And at 141 feet deep, the crater could fit three vertically stacked yellow school buses.
Scientists estimate that an impact of this magnitude happens on the Moon about once in a century or even longer". - NASA
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| The Crescent Nebula NGC 6888 captured from the Jodrell Plank Observatory using a Seestar S30 in EQ mode and it's integral light pollution filter. - 50 x1 minute exposures. Image capture and processing Credit: Pip Stakkert. |
" Lots going on in this image as the Crescent Nebula sits in the plane of the Summer Milky Way's Disc. Huge amounts of ionized gas creating the red clouds and tendrils punctuated by the dark black clouds of dust. In this photograph there are many hot blue young and enormous stars, which are collectively responsible for ionizing the widespread clouds of Hydrogen gas. The Crescent Nebula has a different and more interesting source of ionization." - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.
"The Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888) is an emission nebula located approximately 5,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. It is about 25 light years across!
The structure is not ionized by a standard B-type main-sequence star, but rather by WR 136 (HD 192163)—a highly evolved, massive Wolf-Rayet star located near the centre of the nebula.
Wolf–Rayet (WR) stars represent an advanced, highly unstable evolutionary phase of initial massive stars (typically exceeding 20–25 solar masses). Having exhausted core hydrogen fusion, these objects are defined by extraordinarily high surface temperatures, extreme bolometric luminosities, and hyper-velocity stellar winds driven by radiation pressure.
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| The Wolf-Rayet Star, WR 136 ionizing the Hydrogen Gas and making the Crescent Nebula glow. |
Formation Mechanism & Dynamics
Mass-Ejection Phase: Around 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, as the massive progenitor star evolved off the main sequence into a Red Supergiant (RSG) phase, it shed its outer envelope in a slow, dense stellar wind expanding at roughly 80 km/s.Shock Shell Formation: As the core collapsed into the Wolf-Rayet phase (spectral type WN6), the star's extreme surface temperature (approximately 70,000 K) drove an exceptionally fast stellar wind reaching velocities up to 1,700\ km/s. This high-speed wind caught up to and collided with the slower RSG shell, creating a swept-up shock boundary with complex filamentary geometry.
Photoionization & Emission: Intense ultraviolet radiation emitted by WR 136 photo-ionizes the surrounding gas. In this narrowband image, the deep red regions showcase recombining hydrogen (H alpha emission at 656.3 nm), detailing the intricate, shell-like shock fronts embedded within the dense interstellar medium of the Cygnus region". - Gary Gemini Comms Manager at the JPO
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| The central region of IC1396 Ha Emission Nebula in the Constellation Cepheus. Rendered two ways post capture; the second showing more of the abundant Ha nebulosity. Image Credit: Kurt Thrust. |
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| This is another JPO image of IC1396 but rendered using a modified RGB SHO colour palette. |
"The captured image exhibits the wide-field ionized hydrogen emission region within the IC 1396 complex, an H II region and star-forming complex located approximately 400 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus.
Gas Emission and Ionization Physics: The pervasive warm orange-red luminescence across the field corresponds to standard Hydrogen-alpha recombination radiation at a wavelength of 656.3 nm. This emission is driven by intense photoionization from nearby massive, hot stars—principally the O-type multiple-star system HD 206267—which emit energetic ultraviolet fluxes lambda < 91.2 nm that ionize surrounding atomic hydrogen.
Morphology and Dark Dust Structures: Irregular, dark silhouettes and web-like filamentary features interlaced throughout the emission background represent dense, cold interstellar dust lanes and molecular clouds. These optically thick concentrations attenuate background optical light via Mie and Rayleigh scattering, shielding the embedded interstellar gas from ionizing radiation. Near the center-right of the field, a distinctive dense bright-rimmed globule corresponds to IC 1396A (the Elephant's Trunk Nebula), where strong stellar winds and radiation pressure compress the dust to trigger active star formation and protostellar accretion.
Point-Source Characteristics and Field Optics: Overlying the nebular background is a dense field of foreground and embedded Milky Way stars. Bright point sources display pronounced diffraction spikes arranged in a four-point cruciform pattern, an optical artifact characteristic of primary aperture spider vanes or post-processing star-spike algorithms. " - Gary Gemini Coms Manager at the JPO.
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| An image of the Great Orion Cloud rendered two ways on the right to enhance Sll Ionized nebulosity. |
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| The open Star Cluster NGC 7243 captured at the JPO. Image Credit: Kurt Thrust using the Seestar S30 in EQ Mode with Infrared Filter. Cropped and enlarged. |
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| Seestar S30 uncropped full field of vision version. Image Credit: Kurt Thrust. |
" NGC 7243 is not imaged and posted that often by astro-imagers, which is a shame as the cluster is quite beautiful with its mix of red and blue stars". - Joel Cairo CEO of the JPO, the UK's most easterly astronomical observatory.
"The astronomical object shown above is NGC 7243 (also catalogued as Caldwell 16 and Collinder 448), an open star cluster located in the northern constellation of Lacerta. Situated approximately 2,800 light-years from Earth within the Galactic plane, the cluster presents an integrated apparent visual magnitude of approximately 6.4$ and spans an angular diameter of roughly 21 to 31 arcminutes.
Trumpler Classification: NGC 7243 is classified as a Trumpler II 2m open cluster, indicating a moderately detached concentration with a medium range of stellar brightness and a moderate richness of member stars.
Spatial Distribution: The cluster exhibits a loose, asymmetric, and elongated structure with distinct groupings. It is divided into sub-concentrations separated by a subtle, low-density dust lane. The core population lacks a central density spike, merging gradually into the surrounding background stellar field of the Milky Way disk.
Mass and Membership: Photometric and proper motion analyses identify roughly 200 candidate member stars down to magnitude 15.5, with total estimated cluster mass ranging between 348 solar M and 522 solar M.
Cluster Age: Isochrone fitting to the main sequence turnoff indicates an age of 250 million years.
Spectral Characteristics: The brightest main-sequence members are late B-type stars (earliest spectral type B5 III). The presence of blue-white stars along the upper main sequence, alongside evolving stars transitioning toward the red giant branch, produces a distinct color contrast against the field stars.
Extinction & Environment: Because NGC 7243 resides within the Galactic disk, the field is characterized by modest interstellar extinction, visible as subtle background interstellar dust patches interspersed among the field stars". - Gary Gemini Coms Manager at the Jodrell Plank Observatory.
