The Andromeda Galaxy Group.

 

The Andromeda Galaxy Group
Seestar S30 with infra red filter. 2.5 hours of 1 minute subs.
captured at the Jodrell Plank Observatory
November 23rd 2025
Image Credit: Kurt Thrust

  " The Andromeda Group, which includes M31, M32 and M110 (all visible in the above image) are very well imaged by astro-imagers and a bit like the Moon easy to overlook. Indeed, you will find a number of our images of the Andromeda Galaxy on the JPO blog.

Whilst we were under the stars the other night, Kurt remembered that we hadn't used the Seestar S30 to capture data from this group of galaxies. It was also a very good time to image the group with the constellations Andromeda and Pegasus riding high in our southern sky. In all we captured 150 x 60 second subs, which were stacked by the Seestar's on board firmware. Pip Stakkert has spent much of the day processing this stack using Affinity Photo, GraXpert, StarnetGUI and ImagePlus6.5.

We were all a bit amazed at how well the Seestar S30 performed on this target" - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

"The Andromeda Galaxy Group—dominated by the spiral giant M31 and its two bright satellite galaxies, M32 and M110—offers a vivid look into the dynamics of galactic evolution within our Local Group. M31, located about 2.5 million light-years away, is the nearest major spiral galaxy to the Milky Way and is on a slow, gravitationally driven collision course with us. Its tightly wound arms, rich with star-forming regions and dust lanes, contrast with the compact, smooth profile of M32, a dwarf elliptical galaxy shaped by tidal interactions with its parent. On the opposite side lies M110, a larger dwarf elliptical whose diffuse structure and signs of past star formation hint at a more complex history. Together, these three galaxies capture a snapshot of the hierarchical processes—accretion, tidal shaping, and galactic interaction—that define the cosmic evolution of galaxy groups across the universe". - Karl Segin outreach officer at the JPO.

Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) passing by Earth and shedding mass in front of the Great Bear's nose.

 

The Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS)
captured with the JPO's Seestar S30 robotic SMART telescope in EQ mode.
A cropped stack of 3x60sec subs. Image credit: Kurt Thrust.

" Wonders never cease, here in Lowestoft, we had a one night window of clear weather and no moonlight on the 23rd of November. Sadly, our Director Kurt is getting on a bit and is currently, what is known in the medical trade, as 'a bit Uncle Dick', so, even with the encouragement and support of the JPO Team I decided against an early morning run of the 5 inch refractor to capture the double Jovian Moon shadow transits. We did however use the quick an easy to set up Seestar smart telescope to capture the comet which has fallen apart since its encounter with the Sun. We have no financial connection with ZWO the Seestar's manufacturer nor with the telescope's supplier First Light Optics, but we would recommend both in good faith.⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

The Seestar S30 is a great purchase for either a beginner or an expert stargazer and would make a great Christmas gift. It comes with excellent software, which is regularly updated and costs currently well under £400. If you want all the add ons to enable long EQ mode imaging sessions (not essential but a bonus) you would still have change from £500. The Seestar's only real downside is its use for imaging the planets, literally its short focal length and small aperture lens system are inappropriate for detailed images of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. It does capture nice Lunar disc images and comes with a white light filter for capturing the Sun's photosphere with sunspots as available. What the Seestar really excels at is images of large and bright galaxies, star clusters and nebulae, of which there are many in the night sky. In our opinion it is also excellent for finding and capturing even faint comets. Other great features of the Seestar S30, are its easy use via a smartphone or tablet,its fast deployment in the field and its large software based library of interesting astro-objects, which it will 'GOTO' at the press of a button.  It makes for a great travel scope and is easy to transport on a plane as hand luggage. Best of all, on a very cold night, Kurt can control the Seestar remotely from the warmth of the Jodrell Plank Observatory Visitor Centre Lounge." - Joel Cairo CEO of the JPO.

"Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) presents a textbook and visually dramatic example of a dynamically new Oort-cloud visitor reacting to a first close passage by the Sun. Discovered by the ATLAS survey on 24 May 2025, the object showed the rapid brightening characteristic of a fresh, volatile-rich nucleus as it plunged sunward from deep space.

Physically, the comet’s behavior around perihelion is governed by two simple processes taken to extremes: solar heating of near-surface ices and the differential gravitational stresses that act on a loosely consolidated nucleus. As the comet approached perihelion (closest approach to the Sun, reached on 8 October 2025 at roughly 0.33–0.334 astronomical units), sunlight drove intense sublimation of water, CO and other ices. The resulting gas outflow inflated a bright coma and produced the familiar ion and dust tails; at the same time the outgassing torque, thermal gradients, and small tidal stresses created fractures in a weakly bound nucleus. Observers reported erratic brightness changes and morphological distortion in the days and weeks around perihelion — signatures consistent with internal weakening and fragmentation under solar heating. 

Following that close solar encounter, high-resolution and amateur images recorded that C/2025 K1 had broken into multiple pieces (commonly labeled A, B, C in the observing reports). The fragmentation is important because it fundamentally changes the comet’s subsequent evolution: separate fragments present more surface area to sunlight and lose mass faster, and they spread along slightly different orbits so the single nucleus becomes a family of fading bodies. Multiple professional write-ups and image sequences document this breakup and the rapid dispersal of material in the coma and tail. 

The JPO's Seestar  smart telescope has insufficient resolving power to show the individual parts of the original comet nucleus but even a cursory inspection of our image shows that the nucleus has been smeared out and made more granular after its brief and first close encounter with the Sun. The JPO's imaging engineer, Pip Stakkert, has enlarged the area around the comet nucleus and this appears to show knots of brighter light and areas of disturbance within the comet's tail. It is very easy to read what you want to see in astro-images and in particular to confuse magnified noise with real data. In this case however I think the little Seestar S30 has punched above its weight!

Pip's enlargement of the area around where the nucleus should be
and the beginnings of the broadened tail

From an orbital perspective the comet is a “dynamically new” Oort-cloud object on a long-period inbound trajectory; modest changes to the orbit caused by non-gravitational forces (outgassing) and the fragmentation event mean that the precise future paths of individual fragments are uncertain. Published ephemerides show perihelion at ≈0.334 AU and predict that fragments will make their closest approach to Earth later in 2025 (around 24–25 November) at a distance on the order of 0.40 AU — close enough for well-equipped backyard telescopes and for continued photometric and spectroscopic monitoring but far from any hazard. Depending on the precise post-perihelion velocities imparted to fragments, some pieces can remain bound to the Sun on very long elliptical orbits while others may receive enough change in orbital energy to be placed on weakly hyperbolic (slightly >1.0 eccentricity) outbound trajectories; published solutions for different fragment solutions already show small variations in eccentricity consistent with that uncertainty. 

Dynamically, continued astrometric tracking of the fragments over weeks to months is the only practical way to determine whether any piece remains on a long bound orbit or whether the body (or some fragments) will depart the solar system on an effectively hyperbolic path. Current orbit solutions already reflect slight outbound eccentricities for some fragment solutions, but the final verdict depends on more data and on correctly modeling non-gravitational accelerations from outgassing.

In short: C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) taught astronomers something immediate about the fragility of fresh Oort-cloud nuclei when exposed to strong solar heating — it brightened, stressed, and then partially disintegrated during perihelion — and it will continue to be scientifically valuable as the fragments evolve. Continued imaging, spectroscopy and precise astrometry through its November Earth-pass will let observers quantify mass loss, grain composition (which already hints at an unusual spectral character in some reports), and the post-breakup orbital fate of the fragments. For the public, the object’s remnants should remain an accessible and instructive target for telescopes this autumn; for researchers, the event is a rich real-time laboratory for cometary physics". - Professor G.P.T Chat visiting astrophysicist at the JPO.

NGC 7789 Caroline's Rose.

 

NGC 7789 Caroline's Rose Open Cluster in the Constellation Cassiopeia.
PIRATE Robotic Telescope BVR and Clear filters, Tenerife.
Data Credit: telescope.org, Open Observatories, Open University.
Image credit: Kurt Thrust 

" Caroline Herschel, the sister of the 18th century astronomer William, was an accomplished astronomer and observer in her own right. Amongst other things, she discovered eight comets and catalogued over 500 previously undiscovered stars. She was the first woman to be awarded the Gold Medal of the UK's Royal Astronomical Society in 1838.   A woman being recognised and accepted as a scientist in the 18th and 19th  centuries was quite unique and extraordinary"! - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Caroline Herschel:
image courtesy of the Sheila Terry/Science Photo Library and BBC News. 

"NGC 7789, often called Caroline’s Rose, represents one of the Milky Way’s most elegant open clusters, a stellar congregation whose appearance evokes the layered whorls of a rose when viewed through a telescope. Situated in the constellation Cassiopeia, the cluster lies roughly 7,600 light-years from Earth and contains several thousand stars spread across nearly a half-degree of sky. Though not as youthful as some open clusters, it remains dynamically rich: its stars span a range of evolutionary stages, from bright main-sequence members to numerous red giants that testify to the cluster’s intermediate age of around 1.6 billion years. This mixture produces an array of contrasting luminosities, giving the cluster its characteristic mottled structure and the visual illusion of floral petals.

The object’s historical significance is deeply linked to Caroline Herschel, the pioneering 18th-century astronomer who discovered it in 1783. Working from the Herschel family observatory in England, she methodically surveyed the northern sky with telescopes constructed by her brother, William Herschel, contributing some of the first systematic catalogs of star clusters and nebulae. Although her work was often overshadowed by her brother’s reputation, she distinguished herself as a precise and dedicated observer, ultimately becoming one of the first women recognized formally for contributions to astronomy.

Her discovery of NGC 7789 exemplifies the methodical and careful sky-mapping that characterized her work. Long before astrophysical interpretations of cluster ages, metallicity, or stellar evolution existed, she recognized the object as a coherent and noteworthy celestial assembly. Today, Caroline’s Rose remains both a physical laboratory for the study of stellar evolution and a historical monument to her scientific skill, perseverance, and enduring legacy in the advancement of observational astronomy" - Karl Segin outreach officer at the JPO (the UK's most easterly Observatory).

The widefield view of NGC 7789
taken with the Seestar S30 from the JPO
Image Credit: Kurt Thrust.

Joel's laptop memory is full

 

Comet E3 : Data Captured on the 29th January 2023 from the JPO
using a tripod mounted Canon 600d DSLR. 

"Whilst cleaning out my laptop memory I came across some data from 2023. I ask Kurt to clean it up a bit and run it through some of our latest processing software. I rather liked this soft view of the comet heading out of the inner Solar System and against the backdrop of the stars of Ursa Minor" - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

"On the night of January 29, 2023, Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) could be seen moving quietly through the stars of the constellation Ursa Minor. This comet, visiting the inner solar system for the first time in about 50,000 years, displayed a glowing green coma caused by sunlight exciting carbon-based molecules in its atmosphere. Its faint tail stretched away from the Sun, shaped by the pressure of the solar wind. Against the backdrop of the Little Dipper, the comet appeared as a small but distinct traveler, reminding observers that the solar system is always in motion and that ancient objects still pass near Earth on their long journeys around the Sun.

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) has now receded far from Earth and faded dramatically from view. It currently lies deep in the southern sky and is only detectable with large telescopes, having dimmed to around magnitude +20 or fainter. Now more than a billion kilometres from Earth and continuing outward, it will spend thousands of years on its long trajectory before possibly returning to the inner Solar System—though gravitational influences and its extremely elongated orbit mean that its future path is uncertain and it may never come back at all".- Karl Segin outreach officer at the JPO.

See previous post from 2023 https://jodrellplankobservatory.blogspot.com/2023/02/long-period-comet-c2020-e3-ztf-in.html

The Sun on the 13th of November 2025

 

Sunspot Groups - 4234, 4235,4236 and 4237.
Seestar S30. Captured from the JPO
on the 13 Nov 2025 in a 1 minute video clip
stacked and cropped using PIPP, AS!3 and Affinity Photo software
Image Credit: Pip Stakkert.

" The weather continues poor in Lowestoft, so astro imagery has been more a novelty rather than routine at the Jodrell Plank Observatory. Kurt has also been a bit unwell, so his usual driving enthusiasm for getting outside in the cold at the dead of night has been somewhat diminished.

We did have a brief opportunity to image the sun in white light using the Observatory's Seestar S30 robotic telescope and camera. The Sun was very low on our southern horizon and surrounded by wispy high level cloud". - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.  

"Sunspots are surface expressions of intense magnetic flux tubes that have risen from the solar interior. The Sun’s outer convective layer continuously churns hot plasma and, because the Sun rotates faster at the equator than at the poles (differential rotation), magnetic field lines are stretched, twisted and sheared. When magnetic field lines become sufficiently concentrated and buoyant, they pierce the photosphere as paired regions of opposite polarity; where the magnetic field is strongest convection is suppressed and the photosphere cools locally, producing the darker sunspots we observe.

Sunspot groups (active regions) often contain many individual spots, penumbrae and surrounding bright plages; the most flare-productive regions have complex magnetic topologies (for example a βγδ classification), where strong opposite polarities are tightly intermingled. Rapid reconfiguration of those stressed magnetic fields — magnetic reconnection — releases huge amounts of energy as solar flares and can launch coronal mass ejections (CMEs).

We’re seeing a lot of activity right now because the Sun is near the maximum phase of Solar Cycle 25 (the 11-year solar cycle). During solar maximum the global solar dynamo produces more and larger magnetic flux concentrations, so the disk shows many more active regions and complex sunspot groups. In November 2025, AR 4274 has been especially prolific — producing multiple X-class flares and CMEs that pushed space weather to R3 (strong) and geomagnetic watches (G3–G4 levels). That’s exactly what you’d expect during a cycle peak: frequent, powerful flares and enhanced chances for geomagnetic storms and aurora". - Karl Segin outreach officer at the JPO.

Sunspots on November 11, 2025.
Credit: NASA SDO/HMI

The Perseus Galaxy Cluster

 

The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies. PIRATE robotic telescope.
BVR filters and Clear filter for luminance in LRGB format.
Data credit: telescope.org. Open Observatories, Open University.
Image Credit Kurt Thrust at the JPO.

Annotation by astrometry net.

" Kurt was so impressed with the Euclid Space Telescope images of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster that he decided to direct the PIRATE robotic telescope on Tenerife to image this impressive grouping of all types of galaxies. It's a proper galaxy zoo!". - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Follow link for ESA Euclid images of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid/Euclid_s_view_of_the_Perseus_cluster_of_galaxies

Abell 426

"The Perseus Galaxy Group, more properly recognized as the Perseus Cluster (Abell 426), is one of the most massive and dynamically active galaxy aggregations in the nearby universe. Situated at a distance of approximately 70–75 megaparsecs (about 230 million light-years) in the direction of the constellation Perseus, this cluster forms a prominent node within the Perseus–Pisces Supercluster, a sprawling filamentary structure of galaxies and dark matter that spans hundreds of millions of light-years.

At its core lies the giant cD galaxy NGC 1275 (Perseus A), an active radio galaxy whose nucleus harbors a supermassive black hole with a mass on the order of hundreds of millions of solar masses. NGC 1275 dominates the cluster both optically and in the X-ray regime. It is enveloped by vast networks of filamentary gas—cool, ionized structures extending tens of kiloparsecs—that intertwine with regions of intense radio emission. These filaments are sustained by the interplay between radiative cooling of the intracluster medium (ICM) and feedback processes driven by the active galactic nucleus (AGN). Periodic outbursts from the central black hole inflate radio bubbles within the hot, X-ray–emitting plasma, generating acoustic ripples or weak shocks that dissipate energy into the surrounding medium.

The Perseus Cluster’s intracluster gas is among the brightest X-ray sources in the sky. Observations with Chandra and XMM-Newton reveal a turbulent, magnetized medium heated to temperatures exceeding 50 million Kelvin. The cluster’s X-ray brightness profile shows a cool-core structure, in which radiative cooling in the central region is partially balanced by AGN heating. This feedback equilibrium has made Perseus a benchmark system for the study of baryonic physics in galaxy clusters, particularly the regulation of cooling flows and star formation in massive galaxies.

Dynamically, the cluster exhibits evidence of ongoing mergers and substructure. The galaxy population includes a mix of massive ellipticals and lenticulars embedded in a diffuse halo of dark matter, with spirals more common at the periphery. The system is still accreting material from the surrounding cosmic web, and the gravitational potential well is deep enough to trap gas, galaxies, and dark matter alike within a region several megaparsecs across.

Beyond its astrophysical complexity, the Perseus Cluster serves as a natural laboratory for cosmic plasma physics and structure formation. The cluster’s large-scale gas motions, its feedback-regulated core, and its radio–X-ray interplay collectively render it one of the most intensively studied extragalactic systems. From the cool filaments of NGC 1275 to the hot, turbulent halo that envelopes hundreds of galaxies, Perseus stands as a vivid embodiment of the multi-scale, multi-phase nature of the universe’s largest bound structures". - Prof G.P.T. Chat visiting astrophysicist at the Jodrell Plank Observatory

Reflection Nebulae and IC4603.

 

IC 4603 Seestar S30 Nebula-Filter Dual Band.
Constellation Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer
Modified RGB SHO format.Image Credit Kurt Thrust

Ophiuchus and Scorpius region.
Canon 600d DSLR with 50mm fixed lens.
Image Credit Kurt Thrust.

"IC 4603 is a small reflection/emission nebula on the southern flank of the bright ρ Ophiuchi / Antares complex in Ophiuchus; it lies in the immediate area of the nearby ρ Ophiuchi star-forming clouds and dusty reflection nebulosity. The literature and image atlases therefore treat IC 4603 as part of the broad ρ Oph / Antares cloud complex rather than an isolated, distant nebula. The above image was captured in Sicily at the beginning of June 2025". - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

"The three bright stars, top image bottom centre, (Gaia DR2 sources) 

The three Gaia DR2 identified stars — Gaia DR2 6049142410542091648, Gaia DR2 6049142341822614656, and Gaia DR2 6049142032584969088 — appear in Gaia-based catalogues and membership studies of the ρ Ophiuchi region and in follow-up studies of young stellar objects. In those works the objects are treated as stellar sources (young, pre-main-sequence / T Tauri type objects or candidate members) of the local ρ Oph association rather than as unrelated background quasars or distant giants. 

Observational properties (catalogue based)

Catalog identity & photometry: In Gaia DR2 these sources are point sources with measured G magnitudes and BP/RP photometry; they are also cross-matched to infrared surveys (e.g., 2MASS) in the literature, consistent with typical YSO photometric properties used in cluster censuses. 

Parallax & proper motion (membership indicators): Published Gaia-DR2 based membership studies include these source IDs when assembling candidate members of the ρ Oph complex. Those studies use the Gaia parallaxes and proper motions to place the objects at distances compatible with the ρ Ophiuchi clouds (i.e. the tens to a few hundreds of parsecs scale; many recent analyses locate the core of ρ Oph at ~120–160 pc). Thus the astrometry is consistent with physical association to the local star-forming complex rather than with being distant background objects. 

Physical classification and likely astrophysical nature

Young stellar objects (YSOs / T Tauri): At least one of the stars (the first, 6049142410542091648) is explicitly listed in works studying T Tauri star properties and magnetic activity (i.e., it appears in a T Tauri star sample and in YSO luminosity/temperature compilations). This, together with infrared cross-matches, indicates these stars are most likely classical or weak-line T Tauri stars (pre-main-sequence, low-to-intermediate mass) or candidate members of that class. 

Variability & emission signatures: Several of these objects appear in variable-star or YSO catalogues (variable designation and infrared excess are common for members of ρ Oph), consistent with circumstellar material and magnetic/ accretion activity typical of T Tauri stars. 

Relation to IC 4603 (spatial & physical)

Projected spatial relation: On the sky the three stars lie in projection in the same region as IC 4603 and the ρ Ophiuchi dusty clouds. Given their measured Gaia parallaxes and proper motions (as used in the membership studies), they are at distances consistent with the ρ Oph complex and therefore plausibly physically associated with the molecular/dust environment that produces the reflection nebulosity identified as IC 4603. In other words, they are not merely chance background stars in many of the catalogue analyses.

Possible roles for the stars relative to the nebula: If they are genuinely embedded or located on the near side of the same cloud complex they can (a) illuminate local dust to produce reflection nebulosity, (b) contribute to the ionisation/scattering balance locally if they are sufficiently hot or accreting, and (c) be embedded YSOs whose local envelopes or outflows sculpt the small-scale nebulosity. Demonstrating which of those roles applies to any one of the three stars requires targeted imaging (high-resolution optical/IR imaging to see reflection patterns and nebulous structure) or spectroscopy (to measure emission lines, accretion diagnostics, and radial velocities). The catalogues and membership papers show consistency with association but do not, by themselves, prove which star — if any — is the primary illuminator of the visible IC 4603 patch. 

Limitations and what would confirm a direct association

What catalogues show: Gaia astrometry (parallax + proper motion) strongly constrains distance and kinematics and supports membership in the ρ Oph region; that is why these Gaia DR2 IDs appear in YSO/ρ-Oph censuses. 

What’s still needed: To demonstrate a direct causal relationship (e.g., "star X is the illuminating source of IC 4603") one would need:

high-resolution imagery showing reflected light patterns centered on the star, or

optical/near-IR spectra of the nebula showing scattered stellar spectrum matching the star, or

radial velocity / extinction mapping consistent with the star being embedded in the same local dust column.

Without those diagnostics one should conservatively state that the stars are very likely (astrometrically) members of the same local complex and are therefore plausible contributors to the observed nebulosity, but a direct, observational demonstration of illumination for any single star requires follow-up imaging/spectroscopy. 

Short, plain summary

All three Gaia DR2 stars are catalogued in Gaia-based membership studies of the ρ Ophiuchi star-forming region and appear in YSO/T Tauri samples. Their Gaia DR2 astrometry places them at distances and with kinematics consistent with the ρ Oph clouds that host IC 4603; therefore they are plausibly physically associated with the nebular material (and could help illuminate or shape the reflection nebula). Conclusive identification of which star (if any) is the primary illuminator of IC 4603 requires targeted imaging or spectroscopic follow-up". - Prof G.P.T Chat visiting astrophysicist at the Jodrell Plank Observatory.