Author: WebMistress

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The first sighting of Noctilucent clouds (NLC) by a CMHASD member this year was by member Jim Burchell in the early hours of the 9th June 2026. Below are 2 splendid photos Jim took of the NLC around 3am from Dartford, Kent. The photo on the right shows some fine detail of the NLC.

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Then later that night on the 9th June around 10.50pmish they were spotted again by 2 other CMHASD members.  Below is the photo taken of the NLC by Martin Crow from Burnham on Crouch in Essex.

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The Owl Nebula (also known as Messier 97, M97 or NGC 3587) is a planetary nebula approximately 2,030 light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. Estimated to be about 8,000 years old, it is approximately circular in cross-section with a faint internal structure. Ref:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl_Nebula

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The Milky Way - 22nd April 2026

Taken at St Thomas Becket Church, Romney Marsh last night around 3am. It's a tracked panorama with 9 panels each of 2 mins and 9 separate (non-tracked) panels for the foreground. Mashed together in Photoshop and Lightroom.
Camera is a Nikon Z6iii full frame with a 17-28mm Nikon f2.8 lens taken at 17mm.

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Messier 13, or M13 (also designated NGC 6205 and sometimes called the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, the Hercules Globular Cluster, or the Great Hercules Cluster), is a globular cluster of several hundred thousand stars in the constellation of Hercules.

5 hours of data using a FRA400 and PlayerOne585MC.

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Settling on the Astro filter; George Buckberry captured more data of the Markarian's chain on the 23rd April 2026 using his Dwarf3 smartscope. He then stacked the new data with data already acquired on the 18th April 2026 and this is the resulting fabulous image.

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Left is a labelled Markarian’s chain by Joe Renzetti from Sky & Telescope to help you identify the galaxies.

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Only after 25 minutes of capturing data at 10 second exposures - the Crescent Nebula is appearing in Dan Stevens image that he took on the 19th April 2026 using a Seestar S30.

The Crescent Nebula (also known as NGC 6888, Caldwell 27, Sharpless 105) is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus about 5000 light-years away.

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Experimenting: Three images of Markarian's Chain taken by George Buckberry using different settings on his Dwarf3 smartscope. Which one do you like the best?

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The Moon taken on the 22nd April 2026 by Jim Burchell and George Buckberry.

Jim took his image using a Seestar S50 smartscope and George took his using a Dwarf3 smartscope.

On April 22, 2026, the moon was in a Waxing Crescent phase, with approximately 31 to 35% illumination and 5.5 days old after the New Moon.

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The Leo Triplet by George Buckberry taken on the 26th April 2026 using a Dwarf3 smartscope.

The Leo Triplet (also known as the M66 Group) is a small group of galaxies about 35 million light-years away in the constellation Leo.  This galaxy group consists of the spiral galaxies M65 (bottom right), M66 (bottom left) and NGC 3628 (top).

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WARNING: NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY.  Read the page on Solar Safety before attempting any kind of viewing of the Sun!

A super selection of Sun in white light images taken by members Jim & Simon on the 27th April 2026. The Sun was quite active with several sunspots.

The 1st image on the right was taken by Jim Burchell using a Seestar S50 smartscope.

The images below are taken by Simon Dawes. Details of how Simon took his images are on some of the photos.

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Here is a fantastic selection of images taken by new member Tina Bishop and new to astroimaging too.

All images were taken using a Dwarf3 smartscope.

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