Leonid Meteor Shower 2018

A lone 'Leonid Meteor' moving across the Eastern Sky towards the Constellation Auriga. Canon 600D DSLR mounted on a Star Adventurer Equatorial mount. EOS 18-55mm. zoom lens at f=18mm. and F4.5. 30sec exposure at ISO1600. Background star field from a large number of 30 sec RAW exposures stacked using DeepSkyStacker freeware. Credit : Kurt Thrust

 " The Leonid Meteor Shower was predicted to reach it's peak activity in the early hours of the 18th of November. As this years shower was not expected to show high hourly rates I decided to give the Observatory staff the night off and man the camera myself. The night of the 17th and early hours of the 18th of November this year were exceptional for meteor watching. The skies were clear of cloud and by 1:00am. the Moon was out of the way in the far west. After setting up the mobile wide-field imaging rig and programming the intervalometer to take a long series of sequential 30 sec exposures, I settled down in a chair under a blanket to commence my lone meteor watch vigil. I sat waiting and watching for 4 hours and spotted only 4 fast moving Leonid meteors. In fact during the same period I saw five Taurid meteors which in every way were more beautiful to observe. One of the Leonids however, was quite spectacular and left a trail drifting in its wake. Unfortunately my camera's FOV (field of vision) was not sufficient to capture this 'fireball'. Over the four hours our Canon 600D camera captured 480 x 30 sec exposures and on only one was a Leonid meteor recorded" - Kurt Thrust acting CEO and current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory. 

For more information on the Leonid Meteor Shower follow the link:
Leonid Meteor Shower

Mars

Mars 13 November 2018 now spinning away from Earth on its orbit. 127mm. Meade Apo- refractor - x3 Barlow and QHY5-11 planetary camera 9 minutes of AVI consolidated into one still frame using PIPP , AS!2 and Registax 6 software - Credit: Pip Stakkert

"A very mixed night of cloudy and clear skies over Lowestoft when this image was captured. Mars has been very low in the southern sky from our latitude of 52 degrees North and below the skyline from the Observatory earlier in the year when Mars was much closer to the Earth. Anyway, as soon as it appeared above the roofs, we managed to image the planet before it got too far and too small to be photographed effectively. Nice view of the southern polar cap and is that a white cloud on the limb"? - Kurt Thrust acting CEO and current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

The Andromeda Galaxy - a work in Progress

Messier 31 - The Andromeda Galaxy with attendant galaxies M32 (above and left) and M110 (below and right) Credit: Pip Stakkert 

"The Andromeda Galaxy was directly overhead the Jodrell Plank Observatory when the series of images were taken using the 127 mm. Meade Apo-refractor with a 0.6 focal reducer and field flattener. The 3 and 1 minute exposure images at ISO800 were obtained, using an unmodded Canon 600D DSLR, early last month in October 2018. The images were stacked using DeepSkyStacker software. This is an image in progress as many more exposures will be required to bring out the considerable detail that can be obtained with good weather and patience. It is incredible to think that this galaxy, at a distance of 2.5 million light years from Earth, may be seen with the unaided eye. After the street lights go out at midnight in Lowestoft and on a clear moonless night the Andromeda Galaxy can be seen as a faint smudge of light.  Messier 31 contains an estimated one trillion stars and is moving towards the Milky Way at approximately 300 km/second. It is predicted to collide and combine with the Milky Way in about 4 billion years time. Due to the great distances between stars there is little chance of actual collisions but there is a small probability that gravitational disturbance could lead to the ejection of the solar system from the Milky Way. It is thought that when the two spiral galaxies interact they will combine to create on giant elliptical or large disc galaxy". Kurt Thrust - acting CEO and current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

"The Andromeda Galaxy has a retinue of Globular Star Clusters that can be seen through amateur and professional telescopes. Some of what appear to be very faint stars in the above image are in fact globular star clusters similar to those which are, through gravitation, associated with our Milky Way".
Archie Mendes - theoretical physicist and mathematician.

The amazing American amateur astronomer and astro-imager, Robert Gendler, has created annotated mosaic images showing the globular star clusters associated with M31 - follow the link:

http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/M31NMmosaicglobs.html