The wider aspects of Orion's Belt and Dagger

 

Space in and around Orion's Belt and the emission, reflection and dark nebulae.
Astro-modded Canon 200d DSLR with a clip in Triband filter. Image Credit: Kurt Thrust 

" Here in Lowestoft, the weather continues to vary on an hourly basis. The night sky on the 15-16th started off clear and steady but as the night went on, images of the stars began to soften as a very light mist moved in from the North Sea. The above image was created from a stack of 60x1minute exposures captured early in the evening whilst the sky was ok and individual subs showed sharp stars. I have had Pip Stakkert increase the image scale of two areas of the above image showing the nebulosity in greater detail. I have also added an image taken over twelve months ago showing the whole of the constellation striding across the horizon.

There are three common types of Nebulosity observable in the night sky:

Emission Nebula - quite the most common gas in space is hydrogen which is comprised from one proton and one electron. When the gas is excited (gains energy from the light of a nearby star) the electron jumps to a higher level. At some future time the electron will return to a lower electron state and when it does so it emits a photon of light having a frequency associated with the size of the jump. Our cameras are like a fisherman's net but instead of catching fish they capture photons. Our astro-modded Canon 200d DSLR camera is very good at catching photons having a wavelength associated with Hydrogen alpha emissions (656 nano metres) . The glowing red you see in our images is Hydrogen alpha emission. The Universe is awash with this light. The eagle eyed amongst our readers will notice some blue-magenta glows in our images and some of this is associated with similar energy transitions in atoms of Oxygen.

Reflection Nebula - in star clusters and generally in and around stars space, is full of dust. Where there are very young and large stars the space nearby is irradiated with their bright ultra violet light. If nearby there is a cloud of dust the UV light is reflected by it and we see a glowing blue reflection nebula.

Dark Nebula  - When a cloud of dense dust sits between us and an emission nebula we see what appears to be a dark black hole in the sky. This is a dark nebula and a prime example is the Horsehead nebula which can be seen in the next image below.

The great Orion Molecular Cloud shown in our images is the brightest visible in the night sky. It is just visible to the naked eye in Orion's dagger which hangs from his Belt (the prominent three stars in a line). It shows well in binoculars but will look green rather than red primarily because your dark adapted eyes see green light better than red. Although the night sky has many areas of emission nebulosity, most require a sensitive camera to show them" - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

The emission Flame Nebula top left, reflection nebula
 around some of the brighter blue stars
  and the dark Horsehead Nebula.

The Running Man Nebula top primarily showing both
Emission and Reflection Nebulosity.
 The Great Orion Molecular Cloud showing all three types of nebulosity.

The Constellation Orion striding over the horizon and the Visitor Centre
 at Carlton Marshes, Lowestoft.

Winter Highlights with a fast 50mm lens

 

The Constellation Auriga the charioteer widefield.

                       

The Constellation Gemini the twins widefield.

                          

Part of the Constellation Gemini the twins featuring
the bright stars Castor and Pollux

The Constellation Orion the hunter.

Images credit: Pip Stakkert. Two Canon DSLRs were used one astro-modded and with an integral clip in Altair Astro Triband filter. Canon F1.4 and f=50mm fixed lens. All mounted on a Star Adventurer EQ mount. Stack of 2 minute exposures each image about 1 hour in total. Processed primarily using Affinity Photo2

"The winter sky is full of interesting astronomical features and awash with glowing red hydrogen gas and clouds of dark cold dust. The weather finally improved in Lowestoft and we enjoyed the benefit of two consecutive moonlight free and cloud free nights on the 9-10th and 10-11th of January 2024.

The above images were taken with two Canon DSLR cameras, a fast F1.4 f=50mm lens and an Altair Astro Triband filter. The cameras were mounted on a Star Adventurer equatorial mount which enabled exposures of 2 minutes in length which ensured stars were captured as points of light without any apparent trailing due to the Earth's rotation. The Earth spins about its north south axis 15 degrees every hour, which when you think about it is quite extraordinary!

 The eagle eyed of our readers will note the Flaming Star Nebula in the image of Auriga and a number of nebulae  in Orion including; Barnards Loop, the Great Orion Molecular Cloud, The Flame Nebula, the Running Man Nebula, the Horsehead Nebula and the Witch Head Nebula.

The Jodrell Plank Observatory is slowly recovering from the electrical outage caused by storm damage in the latter part of 2023. The LVST (the Lowestoft Very Small software defined radio telescope is still out of action awaiting reprogramming by Jolene McSquint Fleming, the Observatory instrumentation engineer. Sadly and just like the NASA Pioneer space craft, the the software used to originally programme the LVST is now antique and few but the very old are fluent in the language used. Jolene has messaged our sponsor George Roberts who is sufficiently ancient to be of some limited assistance". - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

The Christmas Tree Cluster - Christmas 2023

 

NGC2264 The Christmas Tree Open Star Cluster in the Constellation Monoceros the Unicorn - telescope.org The Open University Observatory Mount Teide Tenerife. The COAST telescope with BVR and H alpha filters. Image Credit Pip Stakkert.

" A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our readers around the World from our Sponsors George and Anita Roberts, our CEO: Joel Cairo our current Director: Kurt Thrust and all the team at the Jodrell Plank Observatory. Lets hope for better weather and clearer skies in Lowestoft in 2024". - Kurt Thrust

Auroral glow over Oulton Broad Suffolk.

 

Auroral Glow over the Jodrell Plank Observatory 22nd November 2023. Canon 600d DSLR with Sigma EX lens at f=20mm. Cropped and stacked image. Credit Kurt Thrust.

"As the Sun moves towards solar maximum the unexpected sight of the Aurora glowing in the Suffolk night sky was once again captured over the Observatory. Not as spectacular as some of the images published on the internet recently but more than pleasing for the staff here at the Observatory in Lowestoft". - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Jupiter 03_11_2023 close to opposition but through cloud

 

Jupiter showing 3 moons left to right: Europa, Ganymede and Io.

Jupiter showing two moons: Europa and Ganymede.

Jupiter's disc showing its cloudy atmosphere with two equatorial bands clearly displayed.
North is up in our image.

" Our Instrumentation Engineer, Jolene McSquint Fleming, has been working very hard on the electrical systems at the Jodrell Plank Observatory and today power has been restored. Kurt has yet to reprogramme the LVST software defined radio telescope but has taken the opportunity to download data whilst the telescope has been off-line. Friend of the Observatory, Professor Chrissy H Roberts, has provided invaluable AI advice and time, which may well help to streamline the meteor data analysis process.

The weather took a turn for the better and on 03-11-2023 we were able to rig a temporary electrical supply to the NEQ6Pro mount and capture some Jupiter data using the Meade 127mm apo refractor, x3 Televue Barlow lens and the new QHY5111462c planetary video camera. The last image shown above is the clearest and is a 50% stack of 6000 frames subsequently processed using PIPP, AS3!, Registax6, AstroSharp, AstroClean and AffinityPhoto .2" - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

This image was from a stack of the last video clip of the night. (60% of 3000 frames) The high level cloud had dissipated and the atmosphere was at its most stable. Probably the best image of the evening with reasonable detail showing in the equatorial bands and zones. North is up. Credit: Pip Stakkert. 

Storm Babet.

 

"As the direct result of water ingress associated with the rain and high winds, experienced in Lowestoft during Storm Babet, the power supply to the Jodrell Plank Observatory and the Cabine du Jardin Deux has had to be turned off and isolated. Our site engineer, Jolene McSquint-Fleming, has been working today to restore the power but of course safety is our prime directive in this matter. With the LVST (Lowestoft Very Small Telescope) also off line we are taking the opportunity to download over a year of meteor data collected by the 'software defined radio telescope'". - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

NGC1499 the whole deal

 

Following on from the image  posted of part of NGC1499 , we used data from the old 'Cluster camera' on Mount Teide-Tenerife  (part of the then Bradford Robotic Telescope) and added infra red data from the WISE infra-red space telescope, to  produce this dusty and Ha enhanced image  of the full California Nebula. Credits: telescope.org Open Observatories, Astrometry net, NASA/JPL and Pip Stakkert.

" This emission nebula is large and often pops up in our widefield images of the area of sky encompassing the constellations Perseus and Taurus. It stretches 2.5 degrees across the sky and is about 100 light years across. It is approximately 1000 light years away in the constellation Perseus.  For an idea of scale the Moon which is less than 250,000 miles distant has an apparent diameter of only 0.5 degrees. The California Nebula glows red as the hydrogen gas is excited by the ultra violet light from the nearby star Menkib (Xi Persei)" - Karl Segin outreach coordinator at the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Credit: Astrometry. net

Widefield image taken from the Jodrell Plank Observatory, showing the California Nebula top left and the Pleiades bottom right.