Twilight Parade

I love the beauty of the crescent Moon with the faint Earthshine glowing against a slowly darkening twillight sky. When moving against a backdrop of planets, the view can be magical. And so it was on the night of Monday 26th. The three brightest objects in the sky (apart from the Sun that is!). Venus at the top, with fainter and more distant Jupiter hovering above the branches of the bush. Wonderful.

Conjunction 2

The closest approach of brilliant Venus and Jupiter was unfortunately clouded out this evening. Good job I imaged the two brightest planets a few nights ago then, when separated by a little over 3 degrees.



Jupiter & Venus over Willington



Back to the Sun

Sunspot AR1429 has been responsible for recent coronal mass ejections (CME's) which have been battering Earth today, with another geomagnetic storm due to reach Earth tomorrow. Watchers in northern regions have been enjoying some marvellous aurorae, but sadly few have been visible from Bedfordshire. Hopefully chances of seeing the lights from Britain will increase as activity continues to increase towards solar maximum next year.

A while since I've imaged sunspots, so today I thought it was high time I went back to the Sun.

Conjunction

After several months of inactivity on the blogging front - partly due to my PC being out of action - time for a quick update.

Venus is putting on a fabulous show at the moment, shining at a brilliant magnitude -4.1. This is the conjunction with a lovely crescent moon on the 25th March, the two brightest bodies in the night sky being separated by only 3 degrees.



Earthshine