What an exciting week at the UK's most easterly Observatory!

 

 Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS photographed, just after sunset on the 14th of October 2024, from St Michael's Church, Oulton Broad Suffolk. Tripod mounted Canon 600d DSLR with Canon F1.4 f=50mm lens at ISO1600. - image credit Joel Cairo and the away team.

" The whole Jodrell Plank Observatory team has been taking good advantage of the few weather windows over Lowestoft to enable them to capture images of the recent  Auroral activity and the splendid Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS). The cometary images were captured from the graveyard at St Michael's Church Oulton Broad, which provides one of the few unobstructed western horizons near to the Observatory. Our sponsors; Anita and George Roberts, joined the team at the church to view the comet and bearing in mind their great age, it was good to see them still getting out, ah bless!  Anita met a former pupil  and now teacher at the local school, Charlotte, who was excited to share her experience of viewing the comet with her nursery class. We hope these images engage the youngsters in her care.

The comet has survived its recent encounter with the Sun and is heading back out into deep space only to return thousands of year in the future.

The tail on this comet is the longest we have seen over Lowestoft and as a gauge of scale, covered an area of sky, observable to the naked eye, equivalent to that covered by the three bright stars; Alkaid, Mizar and Alioth, which form the 'handle' of the Plough asterism." -

Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

In this separate exposure, you can just make out the anti-tail pointing down and right towards the Sun
Image credit: Kurt Thrust

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS - image credit: Pip Stakkert

" A few nights before the appearance of the comet, the whole team was mobilised at about midnight to witness and image the most incredible display of the Aurora over Oulton Broad. To see such a display at latitude 52.47 degrees North is both exceptional and a witness to the high levels of magnetic activity within the layers of the Sun's atmosphere. The aurora was visible to the naked eye as dancing curtains and rapidly changing rays and the sky from west through north to east was alight with a red rosy glow. We have literally hundreds of images which our 'imaging technician' Pip Stakkert is currently processing for future blog posts.  The following was taken from Sands Lane, just outside the Observatory, and gives some idea of the activity on the night and Morning 10th and 11th October 2024." - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Auroral Curtain, early hours 11_10_2024, tripod mounted Canon 600d DSLR with Canon F1.4 f=50mm EOS lens. image credit: Kurt Thrust

Cassiopeia the Queen of the Night

 

The Constellation Cassiopeia (The big 'W' asterism in the Northern Sky)
A compilation - 3 pane, widefield image.
Captured with the Jodrell Plank Observatory's mini-rig : Canon 600d DSLR
with a 135mm F2 Samyang Lens all on a Star Adventurer EQ mount.
  - Image Credit: Pip Stakkert

" What a marvelous clear and steady sky, early morning in Lowestoft on the 29th of September 2024. The whole Jodrell Plank team team were out under the stars, including a guest appearance by the elusive Comet, our neighbour Mr. Schrodinger's cat. We all enjoyed observing and recording the wonderful and most beautiful constellation Cassiopeia 'The Queen of the Night'.

Pip Stakkert set about using the Observatory's un-modded camera to record 30 minutes of one minute duration exposures at ISO1600 of three separate but overlapping areas of the constellation Cassiopeia. This part of the night sky is awash with stars and nebulosity. We were pleased to have recorded the bright emission nebula NGC281 (aka The Pacman Nebula) and the reflection nebula around the bright variable star Gamma Cassiopeia (centre star of the 'W' asterism). A number of open star clusters, including the magnificent M103 with its central red giant star, can be seen in the completed compilation image." - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

"When I look up at the very distinctive 'W' asterism, which forms the 'bones' of the constellation Cassiopeia, I am reminded of the character, 'The Queen of the Night' in my favourite opera 'The Magic Flute' by Mozart" - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Andromeda and Perseus rising in Northern Hemisphere autumnal skies.

 

The M31 group of Galaxies in Andromeda : Canon 600D DSLR and Samyang 135mm F2 lens reduced with filter rings. Stack of 60x1min exp at ISO1600.

" The early morning hours of the 29-09-2024 were both clear and steady, so excellent conditions for astro-imaging. Now the M31 group of galaxies is a bit of a astro-imaging cliche but however many times the Astro-team at the Jodrell Plank Observatory photograph it, each year in autumn when the constellation Andromeda rides high, someone just has to point a camera in its direction. This year Kurt could not help using the Samyang 135mm lens to provide a wider field of view of  M31, M110 and M32. There are just so many stars in this part of the sky that we decided to use software to reduce the brightness and number of stars. We also captured some photons from 'in and around' Andromeda's mum (aka the constellation Cassiopeia) which await processing by Pip Stakkert - but more of that later." -Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Sadr Gamma Cygni

 

Pip Stakkert used two cameras; an astro-modded Canon 200d DSLR and an un-modded Canon 600d DSLR and a Samyang F2 135mm fixed lens to image the area around the star Sadr in the constellation Cygnus. The data was processed and stacked by Jolene McSquint-Fleming using Affinity Photo 2 (with James Ritson's macros), GraXpert AI and Starnet GUI. The sets of data were combined using Registar software and star diffraction effects were added using StarSpikes Pro4.

Credit: Astrometry. net

Spectral Profile of the  F8 spectral class star Sadr -Captured and processed
at the Jodrell Plank Observatory
by Kurt Thrust on the 26-08-2024 using the transmission grating spectrometer
designed and constructed by our resident engineer Jolene McSquint-Fleming

"Sadr is visible to the naked from the Northern Hemisphere during the summer and early autumn. It appears as a yellowish white star some 1800 light years distant and sits at he intersection of the stars in the constellation Cygnus, which make the asterism 'The Northern Cross'. The Sadr region sits within the Summer Milky Way and is awash with ionised gas and dark dust lanes. Two nebulae of note are  IC1318 (also known as the Butterfly Nebula) and NGC6888 (aka the Crescent Nebula).

Sadr is a beast of a Super Giant star with a mass over 14 times and a radius of over 180 times that of our Sun. It is on the 'main sequence', is fusing hydrogen at its core at a prodigious rate and emitting energy 133,00 times faster than the Sun. It is also the A component of a gravitationally bound multi-star system. 

NGC 6910 is a lose open star cluster first discovered by John Herschel and is located east-north--east of Sadr. It requires a telescope or large binoculars to resolve individual stars.

The Crescent Nebula (Credit: The Robotic PIRATE Telescope, Open Observatories, telescope .org Image captured remotely by Kurt Thrust.
with annotation identifying the Wolf-Rayet star HD192163 or WR136

If you look carefully at our top widefield image of the region around Sadr you will notice the Crescent Nebula and the Wolf Rayet star towards it's centre. The Crescent Nebula is approximately 5000 light years distant. It has been formed by the fast stellar wind from the Wolf-Rayet star colliding with  the slower moving wind ejected by the star when it became a red giant some hundreds of thousands of years ago. The collision has created a shell and two shock waves, one moving outward and one moving inward. The inward moving shock wave heats the stellar wind to X-ray-emitting temperatures. Jolene hopes in the very near future to capture the spectral profile of a Wolf Rayet star, which exhibit high temperatures and broad spectral emission lines of ionised; Helium, Nitrogen and Carbon. ". - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Saturn September 2024

 

               

    

            

                       

"127mm Meade Apo refractor, Televue x3 Barlow and QHY5111462c camera.  Early hours of the 12th Sept 2024 taken from Outon Broad Suffolk. Clear skies but turbulent so achieving focus was difficult at F23. Software used: SharpCap 4.1, PIPP, AS!3, Registax6, Affinity Photo2 and AstroSharp and Clean.

The whole Jodrell Plank team were out, in force in the early hours of the 12th of September, to capture our first video clips this year of the majestic planet Saturn. What was very noticeable was by how much Saturn's rings had closed since we last imaged the planet! The solar system is a very dynamic system. As an unexpected bonus we were able to image four of the planet's moons; Rhea, Tethys, Enceladus and Dione.

Before we closed down our operations for the night, we used the 127mm telescope to obtain spectra for the stars: Vega, Altair, Tarazed and Ashlain." - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

      

                    

Summer Delights 2024

 

Rho Ophiuchi Star Clouds
from a hotel balcony in Sicily 2024

Altair, Tarazed and Barnards E
from the Jodrell Plank Observatory 2024

A Perseid Fireball piercing the Summer Triangle
from the Jodrell Plank Observatory 2024

When we could see it from the Jodrell Plank Observatory,
the Sun was super active.

The Moon was mysterious and beautiful from the Thames Estuary
and the Jodrell Plank Observatory

" It is a shame that this summer has been so wet and cloudy on the East Coast of the United Kingdom.  However, you just have to thrust your hands into your pockets and get on with it" - Karl Segin outreach officer at the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

The full solar disc in white light

 

The full solar disc on the 15th of August 2024 compiled from a number
of individual panes selected from the best frames from a number of SER
video-clips. White light filter, Altair Astro 66mm ED refractor,
Meade red light filter No23A, Hydrogen alpha pass filter
and a QHY5-111462c planetary camera.

" Pip Stakkert really did the 'hard miles' to create a whole solar disc from the many video clips we captured from the Jodrell Plank Observatory (the UK's most easterly Observatory), on the 15th of August. The weather wasn't ideal for imaging because of the wispy high level cloud, which came and went in front of the Sun. 

This was the first time that we had stacked a red light filter and a hydrogen pass filter. We believe this improved the visibility of faculae and also the cellular nature of the photosphere. The Sun in our image, has a rather obvious orange peel texture". - Joel Cairo CEO the Jodrell Plank Observatory.