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.

NGC 1499 or part thereof.

 

Part of the California Nebula. Data credit: COAST robotic telescope telescope.org Open Observatories, Astrometry.net, WISE Infra-red space telescope NASA/JPL. Credit for image processing Pip Stakkert.

 "We have only ever captured the California Nebula in widefield images but as the weather has precluded imaging from Lowestoft, we used data from the COAST robotic telescope on Mount Teide Tenerife and added infra red data from the WISE infra-red space telescope to  produce this dusty and Ha, S11 and O111 enhanced image of just one part of the nebula". -  Karl Segin outreach officer at the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

NGC1300 A barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Eridanus

NGC1300. Data credit PIRATE robotic telescope on Mount Teide Tenerife, telescope.org, Open Observatories, Open University. Filters BVR. Image credit Pip Stakkert.

 " This month, we directed the Robotic Telescope  features" - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory

Credit: Hubble Space Telescope NASA

to capture data for the barred spiral galaxy NGC1300 to see if we could detect the aftermath of the supernova that  occurred in this galaxy in 2022. We could not find any bright stars where they shouldn't be so we concluded that the supernova has faded to a magnitude below the depth of the exposure. We have however included a HST image of this spectacular galaxy which highlights its

"Bold and beautiful, NGC 1300 is a marvellous example of a barred spiral galaxy. Unlike in other spiral galaxies where the starry arms curl outward from the centre of the galaxy, NGC 1300's arms twist away from the ends of a straight bar of stars that stretches across the galaxy's core. Observational evidence suggests that our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is a barred spiral as well.

NGC 1300's spiral arms include blue clusters of young stars, pink clouds that are forming new stars, and dark lanes of dust. Two prominent dust lanes also cut through the galaxy's bar, which contains mostly older, orangish stars. These dust lanes disappear into a tight spiral feature at the centre of the bar. Interestingly, only galaxies with large bars appear to have such a "spiral within a spiral." Hubble's image of NGC 1300, taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys, reveals finer details in these features than ever seen before". NASA

Supernova AT 2022acko in NGC1300 discovered on the 6th of December 2022. A type 11P supernova Image Credit: DLT40 (USA) rochesterastronomy.org

Our image with the supernova from 2022 superimposed.

Messier109 , NGC3992 - A barred spiral Galaxy in the Constellation Ursa Major - The Great Bear.

 

Messier109, telescope.org Open Science Laboratories, Open University, COAST Robotic telescope with BVR filters on Mount Teide

Location chart credit: Astrometry.net

" I am fond of 'barred galaxies like Messier109 over 65 light years distant in Ursa Major. By all accounts our home galaxy, The Milky Way, is a barred galaxy and must look very much like M109 if viewed from a planet orbiting a star in M109. I love it when life becomes  'a serpent eating its own tail'" - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.