frogesque

Woohooo! Just gotten round to checking the photos properly and guess what?! Venus emerging. and about 6 mins later Just goes to show, you can never tell the outcome untill the large lady with the excess avoirsdupois has packed up and gone home

Was out for over an hour trying to get a shot but cloud came in just after the occultation ended so no decent pics I'm afraid. I was just about packing up when right on time ISS appeared so it was a nice bonus. :lol:

Not the best of shots :lol: . Hand held and standing on the garden table looking over the fence :lol: Tomorrow night should be even better as the Moon will be higher very close to Venus. I'll try and get set up with a tripod where I can get a decent view - hopefully the fog won't come down too early! Edit I see there will be an occultation of Venus by the moon about 15.45 here and ending just after 17.00 and I think the ISS will be around somewhere too: Just checked Heavens Above - for my location ISS 1 Dec -0.9 17:16:25 10 WSW 17:19:07 33 S 17:21:14 14 ESE 0.25sec @ f3.5. ISO 400

A beautifull afternoon down on the Forth at Pathead, Kirkcaldy. Chilly but only a very light breeze so really lovely in the sun 1st. pic is a Kelvin-Helmholz cloud that desperately kept trying to form. This was about the best it could manage! The others? Just a couple of pretty snaps to give some idea of how calm and tranquil it was :lol:

Super set of pics! Great shot of the 'castle in the air'.

Nice pics! I was also looking out over the Noth Sea this afternoon while walking the dog.

If you can only stand with difficulty in the wind, the snow stings the backs of your ears your ears and you can't see you feet - it's a blizzard! B)

Love the first pic! Well done B)

http://www.spaceweather.com/ At last! Somethings gone pop! http://nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dry.gif "EXPLOSION IN PROGRESS: An explosion is underway on the sun. The source of the blast lies out of sight somewhere over the sun's western limb, but the ejecta is visible as it billows into space:" More from linky!

Superb pics! Thanks for sharing

Ah! Saggy bottoms

That's quite a basketfull for one day!

Looks like you had a fair bit more than us!

For all you snow freaks :o This time from Fife. Beautifull day; crisp, cold and bright! Kids out on sledges and throwing snowballs. Only about an inch but it's enough to say we've had our first real snow of the winter

Thanks Andy! Took it with a point'n'click 7.1MPix Olympus mu740. Handy little thing to carry in the car or pocket. Reasonably versatile for its size

Walking back from the shop and this caught my eye!

What I do notice is the accuarcy ( within the understanding of the day) of the descriptions and sketches. Our Victorian forebears certainly had a way with words!

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0810...cury-flyby.html Spacecraft Reveals Stunning New Views of Mercury By Jeremy Hsu Staff Writer posted: 7 October 2008 ET A NASA probe has begun beaming back stunning new images from its successful second flyby of Mercury, the planet closest to the sun. NASA's MESSENGER probe captured never-before-seen views of the Mercury during its encounter on Monday. The spacecraft zipped past Mercury for the second time this year and used the planet's gravity to adjust its path as it continues en route to become the first probe to orbit the planet in March 2011. More + pics from link.

http://www.spaceweather.com/ Sunspot 1002: small but a cycle 24 http://nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif

My pic of 14 Dec 2006, just north of Aberdeen

Just to add to what Chris Knight has said: Try this page which has a reasonably simple explananation of the different colours and at what level in the atmosphere they are produced. http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/211.fall2000.w...roraColors.html

The lights can be slow moving or highly dynamic with short (less than one second) pulses racing across the sky. The lights looked genuine although probably somewhat enhanced by the camera. It takes a really fast lens to capture motion in the lights and my guess is they had some sophisticated photo mutiplier in the gubbins of the camera. The colours can be intense and it looked a reasonable display with a typical curtain effect. Sometimes you can hang about for hours waiting with little but a dull green 'rainbow' somewhere to the North and then the sky will suddenly explode. In Scotland we don't get many good displays but when we do they are really spectacular with bright and vivid puples, yellows and reds besides the green. The best photos are pretty much exculsively of slow undulating shows whereas the best one I've seen was a highly dynamic full corona almost directly overhead. And, despite all the 'rules' this happend shortly after sunset and I was only a few miles from the house. It's solar minimum at the moment, moving slowly into sunspot cycle 24 but there have been good coronal holes producing enough solar wind to give some good lights in higher northern latitutes. Within the confines of the program, editing and time constraints I thought the whole piece was enchanting and the photography spectacular. Joana & Co. did a good job! Alas, I'll probably have to wait a couple of years untill cycle24 really gets under way and we get some good sunspots with X flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) directed our way. Untill then I'll just have to make do with Spaceweather :lol: Spaceweather Aurora Gallery

Comet McNaught (C 2006 P1) wasn't too bad though

Yep, def M Class on old cycle 23 http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/xray_5m.html

Nice CME just over the Sun's NE limb: see movie http://www.spaceweather.com/images2008/24f...t83eoupbnee2jh1 More details on Spaceweather main page (look back to 23rd. Feb 08 when it gets archived) http://www.spaceweather.com/ Are we at last getting some real activity?