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

2020

January

The night sky often appears to be unchanging from night to night and indeed year to year. Yet, if you look carefully, certain stars are what are termed variable, they change subtly in brightness. This can be just hours to over a year and indeed in our case now, several years for their period of variability. Betelgeuse is technically called Alpha Orionis, suggesting it is the brightest star in Orion, however, for the vast majority of the time it is Rigel that is the brightest. Since Oct 2019, Betelgeuse has faded and is now a similar magnitude as Bellatrix which lies to the right of Betelgeuse in the image above. The image was taken with the Canon 50D DSLR and lens set at 21mm and a 30 seconds exposure on a Star Adventurer tracking mount. It was taken on the evening of December 9th 2019. Although it is unlikely to explode (yet) it is worth keeping an eye on it!

February

The Pacman Nebula taken with an unusual telescope, the Stellina. This system doesn't need polar aligning, all you need to do is make sure it is level and turn it on. It calibrates itself, plate solves the sky then knows where to point when you choose a target. It then live stacks an image on your smart device such as the one here. Impressive and perhaps the future of astro imaging?

March

A 4 pane stitched image showing the Winter stars and constellations taken on dec 22nd 2019 using a Pixel 4 smartphone in NightSight mode. Orion, Taurus, Auriga, Gemini, Canis Minor and Monoceros are all visible along with the Winter Milky way diagonally across from top right to bottom left.

April

The Comma butterfly is a favourite of Lorraine and Paul and we always look forward to seeing our first of the year. This one was basking at the back of our garden on our fence and stayed long enough for Paul to get close with his iPhone XR to take this picture on March 25th 2020.

May

Most would consider a 500mm (20") telescope a night time instrument but that is not the case as long as you are careful and not point it at the Sun! Here we see it when Paul was imaging Venus with it (inset) on the late afternoon of April 25th 2020 at about 17:24 BST. In the GoTo alignment menu there is a 'daylight' setting and as Venus is bright enough to be spotted in daytime if conditions are right then an alignment on that planet alows the telescope to still track it and keep it in view for both visual and imaging purposes.

June

A side view of a female Holly Blue Butterfly. These are quite small and often very quick to take flight so Paul was pleased to get this close up using just his iPhone XR. It was taken at the back of our garden on May 5th 2020 and earlier pics showed it had dark tips to its upper surface wings showing it was a female. The male is completely blue with no dark tips but was not seen that day.

July

The Garnet Star (at right, bright orange star) and the Elephant Trunk Nebula in Cepheus. Taken on two nights with data from May 27th & 29th using the Equinox 80ED refractor and WO field flattener and the modified Canon 300D DSLR. Stack of 219 x 1 minute exposures at ISO 1600.

August

This is the Large Yellow Underwing Moth (Noctua pronuba) that landed on Paul’s hand and rested enough to open up its wings slightly which showed naturally it’s yellow (more like orange!) underwing. Taken with the iPhone XR and flash hence the bright glint in the left hand of its eyes on the left hand side image. Quite a pretty moth when it flies but when the wings are closed you can’t see the underwings as can be seen in the right hand image taken a few moments before hand when it was on our light stand in the conservatory. Although over the years Lorraine and Paul tended to just look out for butterflies, over the last few years we’ve noticed a large variety of moths seem to enjoy our garden and home and if they stay long enough then Paul tries to photograph them!

September

Astronomers have had to wait 23 years for a bright naked eye comet since Hale-Bopp in 1997 and Comet F3 Neowise during July didn’t disappoint. For a couple of weeks hanging low in the north it graced our skies and the only way Paul could photograph it durig the Covid - 19 lockdown was from the middle of our cul-de-sac road when everyone was in bed and the streetlights had gone out. The wide field left hand images were taken with 18mm and 70mm lenses on July 12th whilst the larger view at right was taken with the 200mm lens on July 21st when the comets head was beginning to show the characteristic green glow and the fainter straighter ‘blue’ ion tail is also visible. The comet takes 6800 years to orbit the sun so we won’t be around to see it next time!

October

In our garden towards the back (and technically due south from Paul’s main telescopes) we have a Ribes bush that produces lots of red flowers during Spring but does tend to grow high if unchecked. Unfortunately we didn’t cut it back before it had its growth spurt and so it began to block out the view for astro objects quite low down towards the south, especially Jupiter and Saturn. Although wasps had been noted in the garden and quite active, it was only when Paul went to cut back the Ribes when he discovered the large wasps nest in the middle of it. Wasps may seem a nuisance but are just as important to local fauna and for keeping other insects under control so we decided to leave it until the queen had left the nest. Once activity had stopped Paul cut back the Ribes and found the nest and it’s an amazing structure to behold. Nature shows us that it is the master of engineering and to think this is effectively ‘paper’ produced from local wood and turned into the material to build the nest with.

November

Mars! The red planet was at its closest in 15 years to the earth back in 2018 but for the Northern Hemisphere it was very low in the sky and so poorly placed. But early October 2020 would see it still reasonably close and higher in the sky. So, on the night of closest approach for the year (Oct 6th-7th) it was amazingly clear allowing Paul to capture his best images yet of the planet and better still, also image (separately) the two Martian moons of Phobos and Deimos. The above left image is a composite of both sets of images with an explanation of some of the technical details of the images. The RHS image was taken with the Stargate 500 on a particularly good night showing detail Paul has not captured before. If you compare with the images taken back in 2005 and shown in the January POTM for 2006, the latest images of Mars are a big improvement on the images taken 15 years earlier showing how technology and especially imaging cameras have come a long way during that time. Note the two Martian moons are quite faint so have to be imaged with longer exposures and when they are out of the glare of the planet.

December

A reminder of warmer times earlier in the year with this Red Admiral on our Buddleia!