The Plough Asterism

 

The Plough Asterism;
Canon 600d DSLR and EOS 18-55mm zoom lens on a Skywatcher Gti EQ mount.
Image credit: Pip Stakkert.

" The team was out on mass on the night of the predicted meteor maximum, to capture a Lyrid Meteor or two. Unfortunately, we didn't see one but we did get lots of light-subs of the 'Plough Asterism', part of  Ursa Major, the Great Bear Constellation. However, the LVST software defined radio at the JPO, did pick up lots of radar reflections from Lyrid meteor plasma created by friction in the upper atmosphere somewhere over the Southern France" - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Screen Capture, using Spectrum Lab Software: of a reflected radar beam generated from Dijon, in France. The plasma, created by the Lyrid meteor, probably no bigger than a grain of sand, is opaque to radar and so reflective. The LVST, via its Yagi Aerial, is able to detect such reflections. Interestingly, we had been picking up reflections from Lyrids for a number of days. All of them showed very little frequency spread, implying little to no doppler effects and implying the Lyrid shower was entering the atmosphere from a consistent direction and not moving towards or away from the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Waxing New Moon from Darsham, Suffolk.

 

"We sent our sponsors, Anita and George off on a 'night out' to Darsham, home of DASH Astro Society and a designated Dark Sky Village in Suffolk. Being pensioners, they don't get out much, so they were very pleased to take their smart phones to Darsham and capture some photos  of a rather beautiful waxing New Moon" - Joel Cairo CEO of the JPO 'the UK's most easterly Astronomical Observatory'.

" Strangely, George came back to the JPO all excited as, whilst standing looking at the Moon with his phone in his hand, he had had an idea of making a lightweight, low cost battery operated, star tracker for his Google 8a phone,  from an analogue 240 volt -24 hour 3 pin timer switch. Jolene just smiled and said 'bless' but encouraged the 'old boy' to give it a go!" - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Jupiter in April 2026

 Live view on Sunday night from the Jodrell Plank Observatory of the 127mm Meade Refractor 'slewing' to the planet Jupiter, currently just below the stars Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini.

" Kurt and the JPO team were amazed to discover the 'weather apps' were predicting a clear moonless night for Lowestoft. So, they 'fired up' the Observatory's 127mm apo-refractor to capture some video clips of the 'King of the Planets', Jupiter. The images on the computer seemed quite 'soft' but Kurt decided to keep the team active until 1:00 am, when Jupiter became very low in the west. Prior to the Jupiter data capture session, Kurt had not checked if the jet stream was overhead. The JPO team did wonder, whether the presence of the 'jet stream' was the cause of the soft or less 'sharp' planetary video clips obtained on the night and/or whether Kurt was 'losing it'?

Subsequently, the team's surmise has been proved correct by the current published 'Jet Stream Chart', which indicates a turbulent air stream outlier over Lowestoft.

Pip Stakkert has to date processed one of the video clips and produced the following image, which displays the planet's main features including; the two principal equatorial belts and zones and the 'Great Red Spot' anticyclone.

Jupiter 11-04-2024, Meade 127mm apo refractor, Televue x3 Barlow lens, infra-red cut filter, QHY planetary video camera, 3 minutes Avi.
Image credit: Pip Stakkert at the JPO.

The whole JPO team had their Covid inoculations today and all team members are consequently on reduced duties for a few days. When they resume full activities, more images from this last Jovian session at the JPO, will become available and will be posted in due course" - Joel Cairo CEO of the JPO, the UK's most easterly astronomical observatory.

Credits: Enhanced image of the Great Red Spot anticyclone by Jason Major based on images provided courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS.

Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) a Kreutz 'Sun-grazing Comet' 04-04-2026

 

Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) heading towards the Sun .
SOHO Coronagraph GOES. Credit:Live Science, Image Credit:
ESA and NASA. (Not an animation - recorded by SOHO camera.)

" We were hoping to capture an image of this 'Kreutz Comet' before it's encounter with the Sun today. It is predicted to fly through the very hot Solar Corona and will be 'lucky' to survive the encounter. If it does, it may well be a bright comet visible from the UK. 'God and Clouds', willing we shall try to obtain images of what remains from the JPO". - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

'Kreutz Comets an Overview'

The Kreutz family of comets are a group of so‑called “sungrazers”—icy remnants that orbit the Sun on nearly identical paths. They’re all fragments of a single giant comet that broke apart centuries ago. Each one swings extremely close to the Sun at perihelion, sometimes within just one or two solar diameters of its surface. In this fiery environment—inside the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona—temperatures soar high enough to vaporize rock and metal. Many Kreutz comets do not survive this encounter, disintegrating into dust that forms short‑lived tails visible in spacecraft images.

Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) is a newly discovered member of this family. Found in January 2026 from the Atacama Desert in Chile, it will pass only about 160,000 km (0.0057 AU) from the Sun’s surface—just over one solar radius—at perihelion on April 4, 2026, around 14:20 UTC. That’s closer than Mercury’s orbit by a factor of more than 40.

Before perihelion, it showed a blue‑green coma (a glowing gas cloud) and a faint tail stretching for tens of thousands of kilometers. As it nears the Sun, Comet MAPS is expected to reach extreme brightness due to forward scattering of sunlight, possibly rivaling the full Moon in intensity. However, it will be almost impossible to see with the naked eye at that moment because it will lie only a few arcminutes from the Sun’s blinding glare. Spacecraft such as SOHO and Solar Orbiter will likely capture its closest approach. If it survives, it could reappear in the evening sky a few days later—earning the nickname “the Easter Comet" - Professor G.P.T Chat visiting astrophysicist at the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Image of C/2026 A1 (MAPS) captured before perihelion by the James Webb Space Telescope NASA/ESA

Comparing sizes and distances.

 

Sunspot Group captured with the JPO 127mm apo refractor 

with a Baader white light filter, a x3 Televue Barlow and a QHY video camera.

" I was suddenly struck by how large the Sun is, how huge the Solar System is and how relatively small our home the Planet Earth is.

Partly, this realisation was brought about by viewing the image of the Earth as seen from the Artemis 2 spacecraft on its way to the Moon and otherwise by the thought that Voyager 1, travelling at 37,000 miles per hour since 1977, has only just left the influence of the Sun and is now at a distance of 'one light day' . For reference the Sun is approximately 9 light seconds (93,000,000 miles) from Earth and the nearest star Proxima Centauri is 4.25 light years distant.

Pip Stakkert used a photo editor to apply an image of the Earth at the same approximate scale as a sunspot. As you can see, sunspots can be very very large or conversely the Earth is really quite small, as soon as you leave it and look back! " - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory the UK's most easterly observatory.

Sunspot pair from April 2023 at high resolution.

 

A pair of Sunspots from April 2023 captured with the 127mm Apo Refractor with a Baader white light filter and a QHY high rate video camera.

" We reprocessed this data captured at the Jodrell Plank Observatory 3 years ago, to show how resolution improves with aperture. When you compare this image with the following image captured in 2026 with the 30mm Seestar S30, you can clearly see 'aperture is king', when it comes to resolving detail on the surface of the Solar Photosphere" - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Sunspots, faculae, granulation created by thermal cells and limb darkening.
Captured in March 2026 with the Seestar S30 at the JPO.

Moon at half phase in Daylight.

 

The Moon, waxing half phase, through light cloud in the afternoon. Seestar S30 image captured from the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

" The 'little but mighty Seestar S30' catching photons between rain showers at the JPO, the most easterly astronomical observatory in the UK. The landing spot for Neil and Buzz centre top in this image. Bon Voyage - Artemis II - safe journey there and back. " -Joel Cairo CEO at the Jodrell Plank Observatory.