Conjunction

Venus and Jupiter Conjunction!

Venus & Jupiter

Venus and Jupiter on approach!

Satellites of Jupiter

Europa, Io, Ganymede & Callisto

Webb Telescope

I found the Webb Telescope from here in Macarthur!

Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard)

A rare visitor to the inner Solar System.

2021 Review: Post 1 of 3

Moon & Planets A reprise of my best Solar System images taken during the year. What! No Comet Leonard? Well … More

Uranus

The seventh planet from the Sun.

Neptune

The eighth and outermost planet

Saturn

My sharpest image so far…

Celestial Alignment

A twilight view of Mercury, Spica & Venus with the asteroid Vesta in attendance.

A Shadow on Jupiter

Io Casts a Shadow

Conjunction: Moon, Venus and Mars

Conjunction!

Dazzling Venus

Why do we only see Venus in the West?

Moon Close Up

Kids questions about the Moon.

Saturn

A good time for planets.

Comet 2019/F1 (ATLAS-Africano)

A Comet in Octans Exposure: 12 Minutes Field of View: 19.4 x 19.4 arcmin Image date: 2021-06-12 It’s not often … More

Venus & Distorted Moon

Setting in the West

The Silvery Moon

Gibbous Moon

That Other Conjunction

That other conjunction.

Approaching Conjunction -2

Planetary conjunction, wide Field View

Approaching Conjunction

Get ready for a close encounter!

Mars

Mars at opposition.

Saturn

With its largest Moon, Titan

Jupiter

Jupiter with moons Ganymede and Io.

Moon

Two Days Before Full Moon.

Exomoons and Double Planets

The Universe And All That.
Exomoons and Double Planets

Venus – Regular as Clockwork

Every nineteen months Venus moves into our evening sky, stays for about nine and a half months and then disappears below our evening horizon

Venus

Designation: Venus Visual magnitude: -3.8 (varies between -3.4 to -4.2 over its cycle) Apparent size: 18 arc seconds. current. … More

Saturn Occultation

Next week will bring a challenging photo opportunity, with Saturn due to be occulted by the Moon. Here in Macarthur … More

Comet 46P/Wirtanen

46P/Wirtanen is a periodic comet, discovered in 1948, by the American astronomer Carl Wirtanen. It is will make its closest approach … More

Mars

This image of Mars was composed from a 4.8 minute video exposure, using the digital crop feature of my DSLR … More

Saturn Near Full Tilt

Saturn’s rings are at their widest tilt for the year this month (September 2018), at 26.3°, just short of last year’s … More

The Story of a Lunar Meteorite

If I can’t go to the Moon, then the Moon jolly well had to come to me. A long time ago, … More

Jupiter

First image of Jupiter with the ZWO 290 camera. Moons: Ganymede (left); Io (right). Object Details: Jupiter. Apparent diameter: 44.3 … More

Comet C/2016 M1 (Panstarrs)

A non-telescopic image, with camera piggy-backed on telescope. At a reported magnitude 9, Comet 2016 M1 – in the Sagittarius region … More

Venus Back in the Evening Twilight

Our neighbouring planet Venus recently returned to the evening sky and will dominate the Western sky after sunset until Ocober. … More

On A Clear Day, You Can See For……

……363,530 kilometres! Holiday apartment view, from Ulladulla, NSW, looking NNE across North Head towards Cape St George. 12 day old … More

Pluto the Previous Planet

This little former planet – 4.9 billion kilometres away – has been on my wanted list for a long, long … More

Saturn

Saturn: Visual magnitude: +0.4 Apparent diameter: 17.3 arc-sec Actual diameter: 120,536 km Distance: 9.6 AU Image: Exposure: 5,900 video frames … More

Comet C2015/V2 (Johnson)

2017-05-25: Comet C2015/V2 (Johnson) – the fuzzy object lower right of centre – rising through the light pollution of Campbelltown … More

Jupiter

2017-04-23: Jupiter and its third largest moon, Io. Taken at The Oaks, NSW. Image stacked from around 9150 video frames, … More

Two Planets

No, that really isn’t the Moon. It’s a planet – Venus. It’s summer here in Sydney and the late sunsets … More

Wide Field Views

All images © R.Powell

Venus Meets The Moon

The planetary conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and Mercury is just about over but tonight the two day old crescent Moon … More

Near The Horizon

Last night I joined my Macarthur Astronomical Society friends at Campbelltown Rotary Observatory for another of our public astronomy nights. … More

Comet C/2013 X1 (Panstarrs)

C/2013 X1 passed Earth at abour 0.6AU distance this month and was reportedly brighter than mag. 7.0, so I decided … More

Three Planets

Jupiter, Saturn and Mars are riding high in the Northern sky at the moment. All images © R.Powell

2012 – Planets

Click on an image for slide show of my planetary images taken in 2012: All images © R.Powell

2011 – Solar System

This year I imaged the Sun and the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus: All images © R.Powell

2010 – Venus

My 2010 images of beautiful Venus All images © R.Powell

2010 – Solar System

2009 – Solar System

These were my first tentative steps into the Solar System with my astrophotography. I was using a Canon 300D back … More

2009 – Moon

My first post on this website was in June 2014 but I began my astro-photography journey well before then. So … More

Geminid Meteor

The Geminid meteor stream was at its peak last night and predictions were for a high hourly rate, especially after … More

Small Magellanic Cloud and Comet Catalina

The Small Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy to our own Milky Way galaxy, in the far southern constellation of … More

Moon, Ring Nebula, Albireo, Jewel Box, Venus, Jupiter

Dual Tailed Comet

Comet C/2014 Q1 (Panstarrs) was just a little higher in the sky tonight but it was still lower and dimmer … More

Finding Comet C/2014 Q1 (Panstarrs)

I like to look for bright comets with my DSLR mounted on a tripod. It’s a simple approach and it’s … More

New Horizons: Pluto-Charon – 2

More wonderful images of the Pluto-Charon System, just in: (Above) Pluto nearly fills the frame in this image from the … More

New Horizons: Pluto-Charon – 1

For the next few days I am going to break my own rule and post NASA images instead of my … More

Venus and Jupiter Video Clip

2015-07-01 Venus & Jupiter with Moons In Telescope As well as photographing the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, I also … More

Conjunction of Venus and Jupiter – 2

The conjunction climaxed on 1st July 2015 with a separation of around 0.4 degree. The first two pictures below were … More

Conjunction of Venus and Jupiter – 1

2015-06-27 Venus Jupiter Sunset – Wide Angle Jupiter and Venus are edging towards a very close conjunction on 1st July. … More

Conjunction of the Moon, Venus and Jupiter

2015-06-20 Moon Venus Jupiter 18mm. (c) R.Powell On 20th June 2015 the crescent Moon passed close to Venus … More

Comet C2015 G2 (Master)

A visitor to the Solar System – Comet C2015 G2 (Master). It was at about sixth magnitude in the constellation of … More

Jupiter

Above: Jupiter: Meade LX-90, Canon 60D, 4xBarlow Jupiter is high in the evening sky at the moment and I took … More

Pleiades and Comet Lovejoy

The evening before I took the telescopic image of Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy), > posted here < I was busy on … More

A Comet, A Planet & A Nebula

It was a short night observing with the Society at Stargard on 17th January, due to the late sunset. Most … More

47 Tucanae and Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy)

I was out at our dark sky site with good friends from Macarthur Astronomical Society, testing my LX-90 in polar … More

The Moon

Lunar Eclipse

I enjoyed a Lunar eclipse here in Australia tonight (8th October 2014). The weather was not very suitable for astronomy. It … More

Lunar Crescents

Comet C2012 F6 (Lemmon)

Partial Solar Eclipse

These images are from the partial solar eclipse seen here in NSW on 29th April 2014. As is so often … More

Saturn and the Moon

An occultation of Saturn by the Moon occurred on 14th May 2014, meaning that for about an hour the Moon … More