Stars / Astronomy / Astrophotography / Telescopes / Astro

Yeah definitely Venus, and if you follow down further West on a diagonal line you can spot Mercury above the horizon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2UaFuJsqxk

anyone got any less tabloidy more trufacts info about the comet that is heading our way imminently
supposedly a biggy is coming our way today / tomorrow ?

wiki do it for you?

Links to ESA page here

Something gets to about 2 lunar distances on 22nd... but that's a long way away given the sizes of the objects involved

Night sky in London looking much clearer I think, possibly due to lower pollution levels.

I am out in the garden trying to get a view of comet C/2019 Y4 (Atlas) which could be a spectacular one over the coming weeks. At the moment it is a tiny green blob.

It’s tiny. Just to the left of the bright star in the upper right quadrant. It is 161 million miles away. But that is only about 9 light minutes, whereas the two galaxies near the bottom of this shot are so far away that their light has taken over 11 million years to get here.

Shot with a 200mm lens from my garden last night.

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Hmm, doesn’t really have the grandeur of deep space when viewed on an old mobile phone screen.

Some fine PSFs are usual Ludd!

ISS is visible at a sensible time at the moment.

Yes, saw it at 8.25 or so yesterday evening disappearing into earth’s shadow as it passed south of Leo. Tomorrow evening it passes overhead here. Might try making a video of it if it is still clear.

What aperture are you using for star shots?

This last one was wide open at f2.8

OK, maybe the last couple of shots for a while. ISS widefield and close up

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The sky has been beautiful the last couple of nights

Is it going to get any closer, Paul? Was considering trying to take a shot of it, but my camera/lens is pretty puny.

The ISS? I hope it doesn’t get much closer than this - it is usually at least 416km up, and if it were to drop a bit, I think it would start to encounter some atmospheric drag that would cause it to drop further out of orbit and crash.

To get even this fuzzy view, you need a focal length of about 2 metres.

Or the comet? That should get close (72.6 million miles) and may be visible to the naked eye next month.

The altitude is plotted by NASA, note how it is periodically boosted back up to a higher altitude before drifting back down due to atmospheric drag

https://heavens-above.com/IssHeight.aspx

Looks like they overshot back in August and had to correct.

Thanks for the link - I hadn’t realised the variation was so big.

20km or so, but LEO is super busy so they'll always be adjusting to avoid congestion.

C/2019 Y4 (Atlas)

How about this one which swings past on 29th April? Any chance of you seeing that?

It will be a struggle - a slow-moving dot at magnitude 10 or 11 will show up as a thin line on a long exposure, but visually it will take a lot of sitting staring at a field of stars to see if any of them shift slightly. But I might just give it a try.

The comet, yes. Cheers for the info!

Going out again in 10 minutes to catch a wide-angle shot of the ISS