Astronomical Images - the best from 2022
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Clicking on some images won't do anything, and on others might toggle you through an image sequence.
Jolly cold at 03:45 in the morning on the 8th December when I was setting up. Freezing in fact.
I was out to see the occultation of Mars by the full Moon.
Mars is at opposition, so is quite big. I should devote some time soon to getting more images, because the apparent diameter rapidly diminishes as it moves away from opposition.
(The images are taken with marginally less magnification than I have been using for my recent Jupiter pictures.)
A half sized video of the start of the occultation...
You should be able to see some rotation of the surface features of mars in this movie, or in the full resolution version in this OneDrive folder
I had set the big 'scope up in the back garden. While Mars was behind the moon, the two of them drifted behind the house as viewed from my 'scope.
To see Mars on the other side of the Moon, I just used the Sony camera and 85mm focal length lens on a fixed tripod...
Back to a deep sky object. C5, or IC342, is a nearby galaxy around 11 million light years away.
Were it not for the fact that it is close to the plane of the Milky Way, and viewed through all the associated dust and muck, it would be one of the brighter galaxies in the sky.
As it is, it's quite a difficult object to see/image.
I didn't choose the best night - in two hours of imaging I only got 55 minutes of pictures. The rest spoilt by cloud.
In fact a decent percentage of the images I used had obvious thin cloud interference.
18th October
I'm definitely still seeking out that really good Jupiter image.
Here's the best three from the early morning of the 18th (you can click through them to see the rotation):
Another image of Jupiter I'm afraid.
This one features the moon Io and its shadow transiting across the disc of Jupiter (at least, the start of this).
Io, has just moved in front of the disk, and is the bright blob on the left. Its shadow is already well into the disk.
The image was taken at 03:23 BST.
This is by far the best picture of Jupiter I've taken since back in 2017, when it was at a similar altitude.
It is taken with the bigger spacer I used back in 2017, and gave up on when Jupiter and Saturn were both 'low down in the south' objects.
I estimated the effective focal length then at about 3100mm, with the barlow lens used here, it's about 3250mm. Maybe, over the next few years as Jupiter get higher in the sky, I'll try upping this some more.
(I've increased the image dimensions by 50%, because the image is clean enough to do this!).
My 200mm diameter 'scope is back in a reasonably collimated state, so I tried it out on some solar system objects with the same barlow lens and spacer I had used with the 150mm diameter 'scope back on the 10th August. This is not one I would normally use, but produces an image size commensurate with an effective focal length of 2700mm. So it produces slightly bigger images than my usual kit of late (3000mm or more would be a good effective focal length).
This only makes it to the 'best of' page because of Uranus, so here are the pictures....
All the images were taken with the same equipment, only the exposure setting changing from one image to the next. Sadly, Mars is irretrievably overexposed (I was thinking I needed to be in bed by the time I got round to Mars).
I was quite pleased with the Uranus image though.
They were all processed identically too, with the same wavelet sharpening settings used throughout. The only thing that changed in the processing of each image was the number of frames I elected to use.
For Saturn, which is still low in the sky, I limited the frames to 350 out of 396. Mars was much higher in the sky, but just above some nearby trees, so sitting in quite turbulent air, I cut this down to 300 out of 396.
The Moon was in a very similar part of the sky, but I used all the frames anyway (as I did for Jupiter and Uranus).
To get a feel for just how much of the Moon we are looking at in the image above, it is approximately the yellow box in this image.
This is taken with the Sony camera, and no barlow lens. If you click on the image to big it you go to a 50% resolution version of the original.
I applied exactly the same processing to this image as well, although in this case there were only 28 source images.
14th August
Scenic image 'best of 2022' is a phone camera image of the Moon over the lake (while walking with Pip).
It was ten years ago, in July 2012, that I acquired the 200mm diameter SkyWatcher telescope and started this web page.
The first picture was of the Lagoon nebula, low down in the south in Sagittarius. So low down that I have never revisited this area of sky with the intent to take pictures.
Until the 5th July 2022. M20, the Trifid nebula is slightly smaller, slightly fainter, and slightly higher in the sky than the Lagoon nebula.
The picture below is a 20% resolution image of a stack of 186 15 seconds exposures with the usual kit (A6300 camera, 1000mm focal length).
It's limited to 15 seconds because of the low altitude light pollution looking south from my house these days.
Clicking on the image goes to a 35% resolution image.
The splodge of starness in the middle of the nebula is a close double star in the single images. Pictures from better telescopes show it as a number of stars.
These are all young stars, having formed from the material in the nebula. Like the Great Nebula in Orion, the Trifid nebula is a stellar nursery.
A couple of images (of the same object) taken while still fiddling around with the auto-guider gizmo. I won't delve into the details of how this is going.
Instead, here's a new object for these pages...
NGC 7023 (the Iris nebula) is a reflection nebula in Cepheus. It is circumpolar from these parts, but now is a good time to image it if your best views are easterly.
It's around 1300 light years away, and is basically a big clump of dusty stuff with a 7th magnitude star embedded in it.
The small image here was actually taken on the 28th April. It is a cropped 25% resolution version of 45 stacked 3 minute exposures from the Starlight Express SX 814C camera (cooled to -30C).
Clicking on the image takes you to the 8th May picture, from the Sony A6300. A stack of 180 30 seconds exposures. The Sony has a bigger sensor, so wider field of view. In this picture you get a sense of how big the nebula is from the stars that are not there, obscured by the dust surrounding the illuminated part of the nebula.
A busy white light sun:
Clicking on both images will go to a 50% original resolution image. The one on the left is the usual 1000mm focal length I use for deep sky imaging. The one on the right is with a barlow lens in place, so an effective focal length of around 2640mm.
They are stacks of 40 and 58 images respectively, processed and sharpened (possibly a tadge over-sharpened for the second one) in Registax6.
Another look at M51, the Whirlpool galaxy. It's in the constellation of Canes Venatici - the hunting dogs, very close to the familiar shape of the Great Bears tail.
As for my last few images, this is stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and then processed in Astro Art 6.
The small picture here is a heavily cropped 33% original resolution version.
If you click it to big it, you go to a 50% resolution image, cropped less.
Back in May 2021 I took a 'wide field' image containing a number of galaxies, the most interesting of which was M61. Worth a closer look, so here it is using the 1000mm focal length 'scope:
Clicking the image goes to a 33% resolution image of a combination of 221 frames.
In reality, I started out imaging this when it was a bit too low. I may have another go later this spring.
The structure of M61 is quite 'angular'. It's an intermediate barred spiral, the order of 50 million light years away, a bit further than the Leo triplet group.
Is the thing at the centre of the galaxy a bright, condensed galactic nucleus, or a foreground star? Stellarium claims there is a magnitude 7.7 star here. Everything else I've looked, including some excellent images, suggest a bright, condensed nucleus.
The bright stars in my images are getting fainter, in this one, the bright star on the left is magnitude 7.6.
26th February
Colette and I were visiting Fran Ronan and Fionn in Derbyshire. A short walk from their house, is the LadyBower reservoir, with Win Hill looking down on it. And Orion looking down on the whole thing.
Clicking the image goes to a 33% resolution image of a combination of 50 images around the middle of a sequence of 171 images.
There is a movie of the full sequence in a OneDrive folder here
21st February
The Leo Triplet, M65. M66 and NGC 3628.
From two nights of images on the 6th and 21st of February.
The small image here is 12.5% of the original resolution, clicking on it goes to a 50% version.
6th February
A picture of the Leo Trio of galaxies....
which is now integrated into the one above. However, after conversations with Pete about the 6th February image, I was minded to scour it for minor planets (asteroids). There is a description of the process in Scratting around the Leo Trio in the noise.
If you've looked at the above, you might be interested that asteroid 2000 UQ63 (Object A) can still be seen in the combination image of 21st February.
Back in December 2020, I put a picture of the Jellyfish nebula (IC 443) on these pages. It wasn't very good, and I commented that I would have another go with the Astro camera, a shorter focal length, and more exposure time.
I had another go on the night of 5th of January 2022, but chickened out of using the Astro camera in the cold (it involves standing outside with the laptop for inordinate amounts of time).
Instead, I used the same camera, a smaller telescope (360mm focal length compared to 1000mm), a higher gain setting (ISO 6400 compared to ISO 2000), and far more images (197 x 30s compared to 50 x 30s).
The result wasn't very good either. No worries, you can click this picture to see an uncropped 35% resolution version of the 2022 effort.
This image does have a redeeming feature...
This is a full resolution snippet from the picture above. Towards the top you can see the brightest edge of the Jellyfish (the head end), and below this a faint grey line.
Looking at the original images, this line can be associated with a faint dot that moved from left to right approximately 57 arc seconds over the hour and 47 minutes of the image sequence (about 32 arc seconds/hour).
I resorted to MPChecker (from the Minor Planet Centre), to identify the object.
It's the 15th magnitude asteroid (4971) Hoshinohiroba, discovered as recently as 1989, and orbiting the Sun in the main Asteroid Belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Being in Gemini in January, it will be close to opposition (hence the observed 'retrograde' motion), and looking its brightest, hurrah.
An occultation of Mars by the Moon.
The Moon, Jupiter and Saturn, and a partial eclipse of the Sun.
Planet comparison image, this time with Uranus. Jupiter, the Moon and the Sun,
Scenic images with the Ladybower reservoir and Barleycroft lake.
IC 342 (Caldwell 5, galaxy in Camelopardalis), M20 (Trifid nebula), NGC 7023 (Caldwell 4, the Iris nebula), M51, M61, the Leo Triplet (jolly nice picture - with asteroid), IC 443 (the Jellyfish nebula - with asteroid).
Clicking on some images won't do anything, and on others might toggle you through an image sequence.
December 2022
8th DecemberJolly cold at 03:45 in the morning on the 8th December when I was setting up. Freezing in fact.
I was out to see the occultation of Mars by the full Moon.
Mars is at opposition, so is quite big. I should devote some time soon to getting more images, because the apparent diameter rapidly diminishes as it moves away from opposition.
(The images are taken with marginally less magnification than I have been using for my recent Jupiter pictures.)
A half sized video of the start of the occultation...
You should be able to see some rotation of the surface features of mars in this movie, or in the full resolution version in this OneDrive folder
I had set the big 'scope up in the back garden. While Mars was behind the moon, the two of them drifted behind the house as viewed from my 'scope.
To see Mars on the other side of the Moon, I just used the Sony camera and 85mm focal length lens on a fixed tripod...
October 2022
28th OctoberBack to a deep sky object. C5, or IC342, is a nearby galaxy around 11 million light years away.
Were it not for the fact that it is close to the plane of the Milky Way, and viewed through all the associated dust and muck, it would be one of the brighter galaxies in the sky.
As it is, it's quite a difficult object to see/image.
I didn't choose the best night - in two hours of imaging I only got 55 minutes of pictures. The rest spoilt by cloud.
In fact a decent percentage of the images I used had obvious thin cloud interference.
18th October
I'm definitely still seeking out that really good Jupiter image.
Here's the best three from the early morning of the 18th (you can click through them to see the rotation):
September 2022
1st SeptemberAnother image of Jupiter I'm afraid.
This one features the moon Io and its shadow transiting across the disc of Jupiter (at least, the start of this).
Io, has just moved in front of the disk, and is the bright blob on the left. Its shadow is already well into the disk.
The image was taken at 03:23 BST.
This is by far the best picture of Jupiter I've taken since back in 2017, when it was at a similar altitude.
It is taken with the bigger spacer I used back in 2017, and gave up on when Jupiter and Saturn were both 'low down in the south' objects.
I estimated the effective focal length then at about 3100mm, with the barlow lens used here, it's about 3250mm. Maybe, over the next few years as Jupiter get higher in the sky, I'll try upping this some more.
(I've increased the image dimensions by 50%, because the image is clean enough to do this!).
August 2022
28th AugustMy 200mm diameter 'scope is back in a reasonably collimated state, so I tried it out on some solar system objects with the same barlow lens and spacer I had used with the 150mm diameter 'scope back on the 10th August. This is not one I would normally use, but produces an image size commensurate with an effective focal length of 2700mm. So it produces slightly bigger images than my usual kit of late (3000mm or more would be a good effective focal length).
This only makes it to the 'best of' page because of Uranus, so here are the pictures....
All the images were taken with the same equipment, only the exposure setting changing from one image to the next. Sadly, Mars is irretrievably overexposed (I was thinking I needed to be in bed by the time I got round to Mars).
I was quite pleased with the Uranus image though.
They were all processed identically too, with the same wavelet sharpening settings used throughout. The only thing that changed in the processing of each image was the number of frames I elected to use.
For Saturn, which is still low in the sky, I limited the frames to 350 out of 396. Mars was much higher in the sky, but just above some nearby trees, so sitting in quite turbulent air, I cut this down to 300 out of 396.
The Moon was in a very similar part of the sky, but I used all the frames anyway (as I did for Jupiter and Uranus).
To get a feel for just how much of the Moon we are looking at in the image above, it is approximately the yellow box in this image.
This is taken with the Sony camera, and no barlow lens. If you click on the image to big it you go to a 50% resolution version of the original.
I applied exactly the same processing to this image as well, although in this case there were only 28 source images.
14th August
Scenic image 'best of 2022' is a phone camera image of the Moon over the lake (while walking with Pip).
July 2022
5th JulyIt was ten years ago, in July 2012, that I acquired the 200mm diameter SkyWatcher telescope and started this web page.
The first picture was of the Lagoon nebula, low down in the south in Sagittarius. So low down that I have never revisited this area of sky with the intent to take pictures.
Until the 5th July 2022. M20, the Trifid nebula is slightly smaller, slightly fainter, and slightly higher in the sky than the Lagoon nebula.
The picture below is a 20% resolution image of a stack of 186 15 seconds exposures with the usual kit (A6300 camera, 1000mm focal length).
It's limited to 15 seconds because of the low altitude light pollution looking south from my house these days.
Clicking on the image goes to a 35% resolution image.
The splodge of starness in the middle of the nebula is a close double star in the single images. Pictures from better telescopes show it as a number of stars.
These are all young stars, having formed from the material in the nebula. Like the Great Nebula in Orion, the Trifid nebula is a stellar nursery.
May 2022
8th MayA couple of images (of the same object) taken while still fiddling around with the auto-guider gizmo. I won't delve into the details of how this is going.
Instead, here's a new object for these pages...
NGC 7023 (the Iris nebula) is a reflection nebula in Cepheus. It is circumpolar from these parts, but now is a good time to image it if your best views are easterly.
It's around 1300 light years away, and is basically a big clump of dusty stuff with a 7th magnitude star embedded in it.
The small image here was actually taken on the 28th April. It is a cropped 25% resolution version of 45 stacked 3 minute exposures from the Starlight Express SX 814C camera (cooled to -30C).
Clicking on the image takes you to the 8th May picture, from the Sony A6300. A stack of 180 30 seconds exposures. The Sony has a bigger sensor, so wider field of view. In this picture you get a sense of how big the nebula is from the stars that are not there, obscured by the dust surrounding the illuminated part of the nebula.
April 2022
20th AprilA busy white light sun:
Clicking on both images will go to a 50% original resolution image. The one on the left is the usual 1000mm focal length I use for deep sky imaging. The one on the right is with a barlow lens in place, so an effective focal length of around 2640mm.
They are stacks of 40 and 58 images respectively, processed and sharpened (possibly a tadge over-sharpened for the second one) in Registax6.
March 2022
25th MarchAnother look at M51, the Whirlpool galaxy. It's in the constellation of Canes Venatici - the hunting dogs, very close to the familiar shape of the Great Bears tail.
As for my last few images, this is stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and then processed in Astro Art 6.
The small picture here is a heavily cropped 33% original resolution version.
If you click it to big it, you go to a 50% resolution image, cropped less.
February 2022
27th FebruaryBack in May 2021 I took a 'wide field' image containing a number of galaxies, the most interesting of which was M61. Worth a closer look, so here it is using the 1000mm focal length 'scope:
Clicking the image goes to a 33% resolution image of a combination of 221 frames.
In reality, I started out imaging this when it was a bit too low. I may have another go later this spring.
The structure of M61 is quite 'angular'. It's an intermediate barred spiral, the order of 50 million light years away, a bit further than the Leo triplet group.
Is the thing at the centre of the galaxy a bright, condensed galactic nucleus, or a foreground star? Stellarium claims there is a magnitude 7.7 star here. Everything else I've looked, including some excellent images, suggest a bright, condensed nucleus.
The bright stars in my images are getting fainter, in this one, the bright star on the left is magnitude 7.6.
26th February
Colette and I were visiting Fran Ronan and Fionn in Derbyshire. A short walk from their house, is the LadyBower reservoir, with Win Hill looking down on it. And Orion looking down on the whole thing.
Clicking the image goes to a 33% resolution image of a combination of 50 images around the middle of a sequence of 171 images.
There is a movie of the full sequence in a OneDrive folder here
21st February
The Leo Triplet, M65. M66 and NGC 3628.
From two nights of images on the 6th and 21st of February.
The small image here is 12.5% of the original resolution, clicking on it goes to a 50% version.
6th February
A picture of the Leo Trio of galaxies....
which is now integrated into the one above. However, after conversations with Pete about the 6th February image, I was minded to scour it for minor planets (asteroids). There is a description of the process in Scratting around the Leo Trio in the noise.
If you've looked at the above, you might be interested that asteroid 2000 UQ63 (Object A) can still be seen in the combination image of 21st February.
January 2022
5th JanuaryBack in December 2020, I put a picture of the Jellyfish nebula (IC 443) on these pages. It wasn't very good, and I commented that I would have another go with the Astro camera, a shorter focal length, and more exposure time.
I had another go on the night of 5th of January 2022, but chickened out of using the Astro camera in the cold (it involves standing outside with the laptop for inordinate amounts of time).
Instead, I used the same camera, a smaller telescope (360mm focal length compared to 1000mm), a higher gain setting (ISO 6400 compared to ISO 2000), and far more images (197 x 30s compared to 50 x 30s).
The result wasn't very good either. No worries, you can click this picture to see an uncropped 35% resolution version of the 2022 effort.
This image does have a redeeming feature...
This is a full resolution snippet from the picture above. Towards the top you can see the brightest edge of the Jellyfish (the head end), and below this a faint grey line.
Looking at the original images, this line can be associated with a faint dot that moved from left to right approximately 57 arc seconds over the hour and 47 minutes of the image sequence (about 32 arc seconds/hour).
I resorted to MPChecker (from the Minor Planet Centre), to identify the object.
It's the 15th magnitude asteroid (4971) Hoshinohiroba, discovered as recently as 1989, and orbiting the Sun in the main Asteroid Belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Being in Gemini in January, it will be close to opposition (hence the observed 'retrograde' motion), and looking its brightest, hurrah.
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