Crocuses in the park in Kirkcudbright. A spring like start to our caravan season.
Spring is sprung
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)
There has been a lot of hype in the media about this comet, but it was never going to be really bright. I started to think about trying a photo as it approached its brightest, but the weather made this difficult. However I finally got the chance to try properly when the skies cleared yesterday.
This is a heavily processed image, made by adding 26 exposures each of 10 seconds, taken using my 500mm focal length f/4 (approximately) Skywatcher Startravel 102T telescope with a Nikon D3100 DSLR on an alt-az tracking mount. The camera was set to ISO 3200. The image stacking was done with DeepSkyStacker, followed by a little image processing there, then rather more adjustment using Gimp.
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Newcastle visit
Celtic Connections live again
Edinburgh in December
I was on the way to the Lothians Radio Society Christmas curry. Here are the lights of the Princes Street fair, together with part of Waverley Station. I don’t appreciate the sights of Edinburgh enough!
That time of year again …
Posts have been sparse this year. I am really pleased with my telescope but haven’t yet taken any more photos that I consider to be worth posting about. Most communication is directly with friends and family, which is definitely what I prefer; I have pretty well had enough of social media. I’m looking forward to a peaceful festive season and hoping for a better New Year for everyone.
Toronto 2022
Last sea swim for 2022
Dimorphos impact
Well that was exciting! The test of a spacecraft impact on an asteroid (actually, a small asteroid orbiting a larger one). The image is of the surface a fraction of a second before impact.
Details from NASA here: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/dart-s-final-images-prior-to-impact
East Anglia trip
Last year we had intended to visit East Anglia on our way home from the nyckel;harpa gathering at Halsway. Unfortunately we had car problems which meant that we had to complete the journey by train, and abandon our holiday plans. This year we managed to do the holiday trip, though without a Halsway visit for once.