Messier 35 and NGC 2158 in the constellation Gemini.

 

The open star-clusters - Messier 35 and NGC 2158.
Captured with the Observatory's Seestar S30.
Credit: Pip Stakkert.

"Messier 35 is an open star cluster in the constellation Gemini, and covers approximately the same amount of sky as the full Moon. It is relatively nearby at 2,930 light years distant. The  cluster is relatively young and is estimated to have formed from a collapsing cloud of cold gas and dust approximately 100 million years ago. The compact  star cluster NGC 2158 (visible bottom right) is much further away, 11,000 light years distant and much older, estimated  to have formed some 2 billion years ago". - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory

The Rosette Nebula

 

NGC2244 The Seestar SS30 in action to create this Mosaic from +220x10sec subs and until the clouds rolled in. Subsequently processed using Affinity Photo, Prodigital Software gradient removal, GraXpert 3.0, Starnet GUI and StarSpikes Pro4. The Seestar SS30 works best on large bright objects like the Rosette Nebula. we are looking forward to using the SS30 in EQ mode!

" The Rosette Nebula, in the constellation Monoceros the Unicorn, is a large and bright nebula and so well suited to the Seestar S30. The above image was captured by the little robotic all in one observatory, running in 'mosaic mode'". - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

The Partial Solar Eclipse - 29th March 2025

 

Time-lapse rendition of the 2 hour long eclipse.
Captured by Pip Stakkert using the Seestar S30. 

The Sun's Disc in eclipse at approximately 10:30am.
Captured with the 66mm. Altair Lightwave ED Refractor with an Observatory engineered (Jolene MqSquint-Fleming) 'white light filter'. QHY5iii462c planetary camera with IR cut filter double stacked with a red light filter. Credit: Kurt Thrust.

"The whole Jodrell Plank Observatory Team 'assembled' for the partial solar eclipse, which 'did not disappoint'. As regular readers of the blog will appreciate, the weather here on the coast in Lowestoft is not always 'great' for astro-imaging. The morning of the eclipse dawned fine and remained so until about 12:00, when the Moon left the solar disc. The cloud did build up over the two hour 'eclipse period' and required the time-lapse video, from the Seestar S30, to be reverse processed by: first, the conversion of the video into a series of still frames, second, the removal of frames worst affected by the cloud and third, the reanimation of the stills to create an 'animation Gif' ".

The detailed image above shows sunspots, faculae and surface granulation of the solar photosphere. It also clearly shows the Moon's limb together with undulations created by the uplifted rims of craters, which happened to be located there, when the data was captured. This image was created from three short video sequences. One for the Solar Northern Hemisphere and the second for the Southern. These videos were captured immediately prior to the start of the eclipse. The third very short video was captured at 10:30am, whilst the eclipse was underway. Software was used to convert videos one and two into a still image of the whole Solar disc. The still image of the eclipse, converted from third video clip, was then added to the complete solar disc". - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Eclipse at about maximum ( partial disc) -sunspot group 4046 visible top left

Messier 51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy

 

Ngc 5194 and Ngc 5195 in the Constellation Canes Venatici - Seestar S30
 - images credit: Pip Stakkert

Widefield version of M51 - uncropped.

" The two galaxies Ngc 5194 and Ngc 5195 are interacting gravitationally and you can see a ribbon of gas, dust and stars extending through space from the dwarf galaxy Ngc 5195 (on the left of the image) to the spiral galaxy NGC 5194 (on the right). The galaxies are estimated to be between 23 and 31 light years distant. The spiral -  'The Whirlpool Galaxy' is just a little smaller than the Milky Way Galaxy and is thought to have interacted with the dwarf galaxy a number of times. Plumes of gas can be seen above and below the interacting pair" - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

M51 COAST Robotic Telescope BVR filters. Mount Teide Tenerife. Data Credit: Open Observatories. telescope.org Open University. Processing Kurt Thrust.

Messier 3 -Globular Star Cluster in the Constellation Canes Venatici

 

Messier 3 imaged using the Seestar S30 with IR cut filter.
from the Jodrell Plank Observatory. Image credit: Kurt Thrust

" Messier 3 is a globular star cluster which may be viewed from the Northern Hemisphere using binoculars or a small telescope from a dark location. Its foot-print upon the night sky is both small and dim!

In reality, M3 is a spherical gravitational grouping of 500,000 stars. approximately 670 light years in diameter. It is located towards the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy some 34000 light years distant from Earth. Many of the stars are ancient and shine strongly at red wavelengths. The cluster is thought to be over 11 billion years old  which is a large proportion of the estimated existence of the known Universe.

The JPO team were astonished by how well the tiny Seestar S30 with its 30mm aperture lens system was able to resolve stars towards the centre of M3. Quite extraordinary!

Pip Stakkert is currently working upon processing data from last night where we used the Seestar to capture a mosaic multi-pane image of the Markarian Chain of Galaxies in Virgo" - Carl Segin Outreach Coordinator at the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Uncropped version of Seestar S30 - M3

Re-process with
more stars and Ha

Dark Nebula - The Horsehead Nebula Barnard 33 - in the Constellation Orion

 

The Horsehead Nebula - 66mm Altair Lightwave ED refractor. Image Credit: Kurt Thrust.

"The weather in Lowestoft has taken for the better and we have experienced a short run of clear and steady nights. The JPO team has been busy testing the Seestar S30 and Pip Stackert is beginning to get used to the processing adjustments, which better suit the high number of 10 second duration subs that have to be stacked, cropped  and processed.

Whilst all this was going on, our Director, Kurt Thrust, took time out to capture an hour of 'early evening' data whilst the constellation Orion was due South. He used the Observatory Star Adventurer mini-rig, which is reasonably quick to set up and get photon catching. The camera used was an astro-modded Canon 200d DSLR with a clip in Altair Triband filter. 

The Horsehead Nebula is created by an enormous cloud of dense dust that is seen in silhouette against the backdrop of a bright emission nebula, which permeates much of the constellation Orion. The bright multi star system,  Alnitak, many times larger and brighter than our Sun - +30 times more massive, can be seen upper middle left in this image. For the keen eyed, you just might detect that the star shape is slightly deformed to its left by its largest and brightest sibling star. Before we stretched the illumination levels of this image, to bring out the fainter nebulosity, the sibling could be clearly resolved from its larger and brighter brother Alnitak. We were all surprised that such a small aperture telescope could pull this feat off! 

The very bright emission nebula NGC 2024 or The Flame Nebula, may be seen below Alnitak. The dark 'veins', so obvious in our image, are created by dust clouds between us and the bright emission nebula.

Emission nebulae are created by bright hot stars ionising clouds of gas, ie. energising electrons in the gas atoms, and as these atoms return to their initial or ground state, they release photons at specific wavelengths. At the JPO we do our best to 'catch them' as they fly our way!

We hope to post some of the Seestar S30 data in the near future. Fingers-crossed, the weather continues set fair. 

As a future project, we hope to use the Seestar S30 to create a three pane image of the Markarian Chain of Galaxies in the constellation Virgo". - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Messier 83, The Southern Pinwheel, Barred Spiral Galaxy in the constellation Hydra.

 

Messier 83 NGC 5236. Coast Robotic Telescope, Mount Teide, Tenerife. Data Credit:: Open Observatories, telescope .org, Open University. Image Credit Pip Stakkert.

"Sadly, this magnificent face on barred galaxy is too low and below our southern horizon in Lowestoft. The COAST telescope being located at high altitude and at a much lower northern latitude can however image it and here at the JPO, Pip Stakkert had fun processing the data

The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, at a distance of 15 million light years is one of the brightest and closest barred galaxies to the Milky Way. 

There is plenty of star birth going on in the galaxy's spiral arms and there have been supernova recorded in this galaxy in recent times.

The above image shows a face on view of a galaxy that measures 118,000 light years across". - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.