observing – Crayford Manor House Astronomical Society Dartford

[et_pb_section][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type="4_4"][et_pb_text]NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

Thursday 2nd January 2025 was a good day & night for Astronomy. Clear views of the Sun during the day and a fantastic clear night. It was also an informal night too for the Society and as the sky was absolutely clear; without no hesitation members got out their telescopes and spent the evening observing the night sky. Below are some of the superb images members took that day and night.

The Sun with lots of sunspots taken by Honor Wheeler

Crescent Moon in the sunset taken by Honor Wheeler

Waxing Crescent Moon & Earthshine by taken Honor Wheeler. The moon was 2.62 days old and 8.35% illuminated.

Crescent Moon by taken by John Archer

Crescent Moon taken by Dr Mike Rushton using a Dwarf II smart scope. 1/30 sec x 20 at gain 0 and no filter.

The Moon & Venus by taken Honor Wheeler (Venus is in the top left corner)

Orion, Jupiter and Mars by taken Honor Wheeler. Mars is left of Orion and Jupiter is above Orion.

Members observing at the Pavilion on the 2nd Jan 2025 taken by Honor Wheeler

The Horsehead Nebula taken by Jim Burchell using a Seestar S50 smartscope. 205 stacked images and processed using the Seestar S50 processing software. The Horsehead Nebula (also known as Barnard 33 or B33) is a small dark nebula in the constellation Orion and is located just to the south of the star Alnitak, the eastern most star of Orion's Belt,

The Pleiades (also known as the Seven Sisters or Messier 45 is a young open star cluster in Taurus) taken by Diane Clarke taken using a Seestar S50 smartscope. 85 x 30sec exposures, Jpeg stacked using Seestar S50 internal software.

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We had a clear night on Thursday 21st February 2019, and before the Moon rose a few members had a go at the Orion Star Count, showing the diversity of eyesight and experience in our group.

The moon rose above the trees as a golden gibbous Moon and some of our group took to observing it with one of the Societies telescopes, affectionately known as Anita.

On the right is an image from Honor Wheeler taken through Anita, a Fuller Scopes 8" F8 recently converted to a Dobsonian by a couple of our members.

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Plane crossing in from of the Moon

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Other members were experimenting with the new CCD camera purchased by the society for the Peter Hindle telescope, a 16" LX200, using the F3.3 focal reducer we got a wide field view of the Orion nebula (M42) and M1 the Crab nebula.

Observing evening 2019-02-21 first light with a new CCD camera

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Another member, Leigh Slomer, was experimenting with his Skywatcher Star Adventurer, DSLR and a 70-200mm zoom to capture images of M42.

Orion M42 Leigh Slomer, 2019-02-21

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Tag: observing

Thursday 2nd Jan 2025

Observing Evening 2019-02-21