Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter by Honor Wheeler – 1st March 2025

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

 

A superb selection of astro images taken by member Honor Wheeler on the 1st March 2025 of the Sun, Moon and the planetary parade.

Details of how Honor took her images are written above each image.

 

Venus phase - Canon M6II with Tamron 18-400mm lens, ISO400, f6.3, 1/16000sec. 

Even when Venus is a fine crescent, the albedo of Venus is still high.

 

Sunset Sunspots - Canon M6II with Tamron 18-400mm lens. ISO100, f29, 1/16000sec.

 

Sunset - Canon M6II with Tamron 18-400mm lens. ISO200, f10, 1/800sec

 

Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Moon and Mercury - Canon M6II with Tamron 18-400mm lens. ISO500, 1/2sec taken using Samyang 8mm fish-eye lens.

 

Venus, Earthshine and Mercury - Canon M6II with Tamron 18-400mm lens. ISO640, f5.0, 1/3sec.

 

Earthshine - Canon M6II with Tamron 18-400mm lens. ISO640, f6.3, 1"1/3sec

Moon & Mercury – 1st March 2025

CMHASD trustee John Howarth spotted Mercury with a crescent Moon on the 1st March 2025 and quickly took these 2 photos from Bexley.

The first photo shows the Moon top right and Mercury, very faint but clearly visible, halfway down the roof line, just above the cloud near the end of a twig. The second photo just shows a faint Mercury in about the same spot.

Crescent Moon & Mercury – 7th July 2024

A super collection of images by members of a Waxing Crescent Moon and Mercury taken on the 7th July 2024. The Moon had an illumination of 3%, which is the percentage of the moon that is illuminated by the Sun and an age of 1.6 days old, which is how many days it has been since the last New Moon.

 

John Howarth - Bexley

 

 

Honor Wheeler - Dartford

Mercury is just above the 'M' on the label Mercury in the photo.

  

 

Jim Burchell - Dartford

 

Richard Bohner - Arizona, USA.

Image taken 6 hours after Honor and Jim's images in the UK.  Notice how the Moon position has changed relative to Mercury.

Mercury & Venus by Jim Burchell – 3rd April 2023

Two superb images taken by member Jim Burchell of the planet Mercury and then of the planets Mercury & Venus on the 3rd April 2023.

The Moon, Mercury, Mars & Orion by Jim Burchell

Member Jim Burchell was up early on Sunday the 9th October 2022 and took a super collection of photos of the early morning sky using his Pentax camera from Dartford. Jim captured Mercury at greatest elongation that morning; along with Mars, the Moon plus the constellation Orion.

Looking East - Mercury at greatest elongation

Looking South - the constellation Orion and Mars. Mars is above Orion (top, centre)

Looking South West - the Moon

The Moon as it set

 

Informal Night & UFO – 21st April 2022

Thursday 21st April 2022 was an informal night at the pavilion and some members took the opportunity to do some observing with some members viewing a very rare sight indeed.

Chairman John Archer summed the evening up in his ebulletin to members dated 27th April 2022. He wrote 'Last week we had another opportunity to get together for an observing evening and a variety of instruments were rolled out – everything from EV Scope and iPhone to Mark 1 eyeball was scanning the night sky.

Members sought out the elusive planet Mercury, and once skies darkened, other more distant objects could be seen.

A flurry of excitement and speculation surrounded the appearance of a mysterious, moving object in the night sky which turned out to be a SpaceX Falcon upper stage conducting a de-orbit burn prior to re-configuring itself into a marine reef / insurance claim – depending on where it finally landed.''

Some objects were also observed using the societies 16" Peter Hindle telescope they were M81, M82, M44 and the Eskimo Nebula.

Below are some images from the evening taken by member Jim Burchell.

Mercury in the constellation Aries just before sunset taken using a Pentax KP 135mm F11.0, Exp 1/2sec &  ISO 800.

The Observatory taken using a Pentax KP 18mm F3.5, Exp 10sec & ISO 800.

Constellation Leo taken using  Pentax KP 48mm F7.1, Exp 2.50sec & ISO 800.

 

The next 2 images below are snapshots taken from a video that member Steve Goldson managed to capture of the UFO that four other CMHASD members witnessed too at 8.46pm.  The 1st photo shows what looks like a small cloud moving very quickly through the sky.  The 2nd photo shows the same unidentified object a few seconds later now as a bright dot with a cloud in front of it moving through the sky.

 

The members were perplexed but excited by what they had seen with most sighting it as their 1st UFO.  Later after some detective work by Honor & Sonia it was concluded that they along with Jim Burchell, David Freed and Steve Goldson had witnessed the second stage deorbit of SpaceX Falcon 9 after launching another batch of Starlink internet satellites (Starlink 4-14).

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