Jay Bolt, Crigglestone, West Yorkshire, 18 July 2022
Jay says: "I had been capturing sunspots when I noticed a huge prominence forming on the Sun's limb. The seeing was unusually good early in the morning, allowing for very precise focusing and capturing of the plasma eruption. Solar activity has been steadily increasing over the last few years, and I am particularly pleased with the magnetic detail that processing has brought out on the chromosphere."
Equipment: Altair Hypercam 174M camera, Explore Scientific AR127mm refractor, Daystar Quark Chromosphere Ha eyepiece filter, Sky-Watcher EQ6-R mount
Exposure: 1,500 frames of SER format video, best 20% selected
Software: AutoStakkert!, Photoshop, Astra Image, Topaz DeNoise, Topaz Sharpen
Jay's top tips: "For solar imaging using a Quark Chromosphere, aim for exposures of 5-10ms for the chromosphere to 'freeze' the effects of seeing. I use gain and the histogram to achieve exposure rates of 5ms on my Altair 174M, and take 2,000 to 3,000 exposures, with the histogram peaking around 60 per cent and taking care that the top end is not clipped. For the prominences, ignore the histogram and increase exposure to bring out the detail. Typically this is around max gain and 20ms on my camera. I then shoot for 20-25 seconds. My image is a composite: the prominences are overlaid onto the chromosphere, then colourised."
Supermoon over the Needles
Cenk Albayrak-Touyé, Highcliffe beach, Dorset, 13 July 2022
Cenk says: "I used the PhotoPills app to work out the direction of moonrise. Right on cue, I glimpsed some orange behind the Needles. After running down the beach with my tripod to adjust the angle slightly, I managed to capture the resulting photo."
Denne historien er fra October 2022-utgaven av BBC Sky at Night Magazine.
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Denne historien er fra October 2022-utgaven av BBC Sky at Night Magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Could We Find Aliens by Looking for Their Solar Panels?- Designed to reflect ultraviolet and infrared, the panels have a unique fingerprint
Researchers searching for life beyond Earth spend a lot of time thinking about what telltale signs might be detectable astronomically. Forms of unambiguous evidence for the presence of life on another world are known as biosignatures. By extension, techno signatures are indicators of activity by intelligent, civilisation-building life.
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Particles and corresponding antiparticles are very much alike, except they have opposite electrical charges. For instance, the antiparticle of the electron - known as the positron - has the same tiny mass, but while electrons carry a negative electrical charge, positrons are positively charged.
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The Big Bang produced a Universe filled almost exclusively with hydrogen and helium; all other elements - what astronomers call metals - were produced by stars, supernovae and everything that happens later. So if you can pick out a pristine star with no metals polluting it from among the billions in the Milky Way, then you are likely to have a star dating from our Galaxy's earliest days.
Inside The Sky At Night - Two years ago, exoplanet scientist Hannah Wakeford received some of the first data from the JWST
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