Paul & Lorraine's Picture of the Month pages

2023

January

Normally when showing deep sky objects they are shown in detail and close up using a telescope but here we take a step back and see a wider context view of the supernova remnant, M1, the Crab Nebula and it's location near to Zeta Tauri, the brightest star in the view. Two fainter stars guide the way to M1 in a shallow arc, to the upper left and almost above Zeta but in this view you can still see the overal shape of the nebula. It was taken on November 15th 2022 using the Canon R6 camera with 100-400mm lens set at 400 and ISO 10000, stack of 21 x 10 seconds exposures with the setup mounted on a Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i tracking mount.

February

This is Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF that passed Earth on February 1st 2023. The image was taken on the evening of January 30th using the Stargate 500 Dobsonian and is a stack of 135 image stacked and processed using AstroPixels Processor (in star and then comet mode) and combined in PaintShop Pro 2021. It has been referred to the 'Green' comet by the media but as experienced amateur astronomers and professionals know, most comets have a greenish tinge to them as this is the extended coma of the comet which fluoresces due to molecule cyanogen (CN)2 and
diatomic carbon (C2) where both glow characteristically green. This is seen mainly to the left side of the comets bright nucleus whereas the lighter area is a dust tail in the shape of a fan. A fainter ion tail streams out from the nucleus toward the right withn hints of multiple strands.
It is worth noting the comet was estimated to be 43.5 m Km or 2.42 light minutes away from us at the time. The general star field based on a few of the brighter stars are at around 1,700 light years whilst a small spiral galaxy (UGC 4644) to the upper left of the comets nucleus is estimated to lie 490 million ly away!

March

Last October (2022) we had the sad task of attending the funeral of Colin, Lorraines step father, a really nice person who passed away in September. We always struggle with finding suitable accomodation that can take a wheelchair and that is disabled friendly so we were pleasantly surprised to find Stonefold Cottage in the Forest of Bowland. This amazing wall portal to another world was built by the owners and adds to the enjoyable experience we had staying there despite our circumstances with the funeral.

April

Although we are only just into Spring, it won't be too long before the lighter summer nights will be here and although deep sky astronomy takes a bit of a back seat, the Noctilucent cloud season will soon be here. This is a 3 pane, panorama of a display that had a patch that to Paul, resembled a dolphin above the northern horizon at the right hand side of the image. The mast is an old one between Hammeringham and Winceby so added a bit of foreground to the view. Images taken with the Canon 50D DSLR and 18-55mm lens set at 52mm, f5.6 and ISO 500. It was taken on July 3rd 2018 just before midnight.

May

An aerial view of the lighthouse of Cabo de São Vicente in the Algarve. This was taken when Colin and I were taken on a flying trip along the Algarve coast by Bev Ewan-Smith of COAA back on April 21st 2007. This part of the Algarve is a rocky headland and considered to be the far southwestern edge of Portugal.

June

Although Lorraine and I love to look out for Butterflies, the last few years we've extended into looking out for moths too.
Some can be quite pretty and this example is the 'Mint Moth' which we saw on May 20th 2023 on our garden gate.

July

Nice surprise when this Kestrel soared over a neighbours garden and I (for once!) had my Canon R6 and 400mm lens to capture it. I'm more used to Kestrels at the side of a road hovering!

August

Back in April when we had clear skies (!) I, Paul, imaged Messier 51, the Whirlpool Galaxy in Canes Venatici with the 20 inch Dobsonian and Canon R6. It is a stack of 502 images at 5 seconds exposure at ISO 6400 stacked using Astro Pixels Processor. The galaxy is a pair with a smaller galaxy, NGC 5195 pasing behind it and the gravitaional interaction has distorted some of the spiral arms of the larger galaxy. M51 is put at 23 million light years away!

September

An image I had forgotten I had taken back in April! NGC 4565, an almost edge on spiral galaxy to our line of sight taken with the StarGate 500, Canon R6, ISO 6400 and a stack of 551 images of 5 seconds exposure. Processed to try to bring out more of the dust lane and inner core details. Note the three background galaxies: one at upper right, one above the RHS disk and a larger spiral at bottom right.

October

Ashness Bridge with Derwentwater and Skiddaw in the background. This was taken on holiday on one of the rare good weather days we had during the last two weeks of September 2023 as it rained for a large amount of time whilst we were in Borrowdale.
It is interesting to note that on my first visit in the late 1970's, it was a clear wide view showing all of the Skiddaw range and lots of Derwentwater but now the surrounding trees are seriously affecting the view but I guess that's the way things go!

November

Paul has been lucky enough to review lots of equipment over the last 17 years with Sky at Night magazine and this image is the best taken of the nebulae and stars close to the central star of Cygnus, Sadr. It was taken with the William Optics RedCat 61 WIFD APO refractor, stack of 164x 30 second exposures @ ISO 2000 with the Canon R6 camera.

December

We've featured several rainbows over the years but this one on October 13th 2023 was pretty intense from our back garden and was very bright on the inside as well as having the secondary bow on the outside. iPhone 13 Pro Max in panorama mode.