Paul & Lorraine's Picture of the Month pages

Our Picture of the Month page began with the June 2002 image of a Peacock Butterfly and each month a picture taken by one of us (mainly by Paul but occasionally taken by Lorraine) is selected to be the current months image. The pictures can be of a wide range of subjects but as you can imagine Astronomy, Nature and Butterflies do tend to dominate!

We hope you enjoy the many images and continue to watch out for what images we select for future months and years to come.
Paul & Lorraine

2015

January

The Pleiades or Seven Sisters star cluster, M45 in Taurus taken on October 4th 2014 with a WO Star 71 Apo refractor and Canon 50D. Stack of 51x 2 min exposures at ISO 200.

February

Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy put on a great show for us in January so here is just a small selection of the images Paul took with a wide range of equipment.

March

An aerial view from around 30,000 ft of the Greek Island of Samothraki in the Aegean. This was taken on the flight out to view the March 29th 2006 Total Solar Eclipse from Turkey courtesy of Omega Holidays. Paul was one of the guest Solar Eclipse Astronomers and gave a talk at the Maritim Pine Beach Resort the evening before the eclipse along with fellow astronomer Nigel Bradbury.  Lorraine and Paul got to see the whole eclipse in glorious sunshine but the weather was so good over the Aegean that we also got to see some great sights on the way out including this stunning island. See the April 2006 POTM for a view of Totality taken by Paul.

April

Corfe Castle and Village panorama. This was taken February 2011 during a day off between travelling for the Northern Lights Flights. The Castle was a Royal stronghold during the English Civil War and Cromwell ordered its destruction but it was so well constructed that it proved impossible to completely destroy! It lies on the Isle of Purbeck in the county of Dorset and is owned by the National Trust, the castle is open to the public. More details can be found by following this link, http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/corfe-castle/

May

‘From Near to Far’ Looking across a field of yellow Oil Seed Rape flowers towards two trees just 0.22 miles away with Mercury lying just over 92 million miles away, peering through the left hand tree. Much further away at 440 light years (or 2.586 quadrillion miles - yikes!) lies the star cluster M45, also known as the Pleiades or Seven Sisters star cluster as the trees seemingly reach up to touch the stars. Taken on April 30th at 10:18pm in bright twilight with moonlight gently illuminating the scene. Canon 50D, EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens set at 135mm f5, ISO 2000, 4 seconds exposure.

June

Is it the sun in Hydrogen Alpha light I hear you ask? No, it’s a photo of our African Daisy in full bloom in our conservatory taken by Lorraine with her iPhone 5s. Amazing what smart phones can photograph and Lorraine has become quite adept at photographing the flowers.

July

Brocchi’s cluster, also known as the Coathanger cluster, lies in Vulpecula and is a lovely binocular sight or, as here, through a small wide field telescope.Two of the end stars of the hook of the Coathanger are spectral class K and M and so look orange in the image. On the left hand side is a much smaller and fainter cluster, NGC 6802. Modern studies suggest that the Coathanger is not actually a true cluster but a chance alignment of stars rather than a  genuine cluster.
This image was taken with the Equinox 80 ED Refractor with a field flattener and Canon 50D DSLR mounted on an iOptron iEQ30 Pro mount. Stack of 21 x 1 in exposures at ISO 800.

August

Leeds city centre skyline at night looking northwards taken from the  roof top of Lorraine’s brothers flat. Leeds University tower is at top left whilst the clock tower at centre is Leeds Town Hall. At right are two white towers which are part of Leeds Civic Hall. Taken on August 5th 2010 at (looking at clock tower) 10:10pm and is a composite of two images taken with the Canon 50D and 70-300mm lens set at 120mm.

September

A deep view of M13, the great Hercules Globular Cluster. Wide field view taken on March 27th 2015 with the Equinox ED80 Apo Refractor, flat field corrector, Canon 50D all on the AZ-EQ5 mount. A stack of 13 x 2 minute exposures at ISO 800 and recently re processed with PaintShop Pro X6 to bring out the outer halo of stars. In the process it also improved the view of the distant and small galaxy, NGC 6207 which lies to the right and level with the orange star directly above the cluster. M13 is estimated to be 25,100 ly away whilst NGC 6207 is a whopping 45 Mly distant according to some sources!

October

The Moon amongst the stars: This is a composite view of the totally eclipsed moon of Sept 28th 2015 set amongst the background stars of Pisces. Under normal circumstances this would be a full moon and the stars would be completely washed out by the bright moonlight. However during a total lunar eclipse, the sky becomes as dark as a moonless night allowing us to image the starry background with the moon still in view. This was taken with the Star Adventurer tracking mount, Canon 300D DSLRwith 100-400mm lens set at 100mm, F5.6, ISO 800 and 1 minute exposure for background star image. A telescope view of the eclipsed moon was then scaled and added to the view to simulate what the eye could see.

November

Back in July/August 2008 I (Paul) was privileged to be an expedition member on a Russian Nuclear Icebreaker that takes tourists to the North Pole. The reason for asking me to be on the trip was the ships path would intersect the path of Totality across the Arctic near to the Russian Franz Joseph Lands, the last Russian islands before you reach the North Pole. Part of the trip included helicopter visits to several of the islands which are of volcanic origin similar to Iceland. This is a panorama I created of Bell Island using Microsoft ICE back in August which I had forgotten about until now and is a reminder that cold weather is fast approaching now we are in November. In the distance at left is a supplies store in case anyone gets trapped on the island due to changeable weather and you can just make out a few of the tourists standing near to it. A Glacier spills down from the heart of the island whilst at right a few more tourists can be seen admiring the desolate but impressive landscape.

December

The heart of the Orion Nebula, Messier M42 and the Trapezium Cluster. This is perhaps one of the best known star forming regions in the sky with the Trapezium stars lighting up the central nebulosity. The Trapezium cluster is technically Theta 1 Orionis whilst the bright star below left of centre is Theta 2 Orionis. Although the Trapezium cluster consists of four particularly bright stars, there are in fact a couple of fainter ones also apparent under good conditions. A shorter exposure is required to capture them otherwise the four Trapezium stars become over exposed and mask the two fainter components. The inset enlargement shows them all taken the same night but with shorter exposures. Taken on Nov 22nd 2015 using the BT 10 inch F5 Reflector and a ASI 224 camera, NEQ6 Mount.