Not wanting to pass up a rare clear night, and despite the cold temperatures, I got out with my telescope and began with a below average view of the Orion nebula, due to light pollution from both the city and moon. I then went on to a spectacular view of Jupiter. The bands were detailed and the moons looked like little disks at 180x in my scope. Jupiter is always fascinating through a telescope, with the parade of constantly changing moons and the cloud bands swirling though new patterns all the time.  I am looking forward to the upcoming months when Jupiter will be better placed and visible every night.  Finally, I turned to the moon, as it was unavoidable on a night like tonight.
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40 Years of Astrophotography – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

With the advances in digital cameras today, many people are trying to photograph the night sky. It’s always easy to show the successes in astrophotography, but there are many attempts that can easily frustrate and dishearten beginners. I will share the often humorous experiences of things gone wrong, and the journey to obtaining a successful astro-photograph.

Paul Mortfield is Chair of the David Dunlap Observatory in Richmond Hill and a member of the RASC Toronto Centre. He has worked on NASA’s SOHO and LCROSS missions and hosted educational broadcasts on NASA-TV. His astro-photos have appeared in museums, magazines, calendars and on NASA’s “Astronomy Picture of the Day” webpage.
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The latest issue of our club’s Event Horizon newsletter is now available.

In this issue you’ll find…

• The Sky This Month
• Total Lunar Eclipse Gallery
• Partial Solar Eclipse Gallery
• Operation Paperclip
• Unexplainable Flapping Objects
• Plus Much More!

Download your copy from the newsletters section.

Photo credit: Partial Solar Eclipse of Oct. 23 by John Gauvreau.

Hot off the press, the 2015 Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Celestial Calendar is now available!

Calendars can be purchased at any club event or general meeting for $15 each or two for $25.

Packed full of beautiful astro-photos from club members, each month will inspire your own astrophotography or visual observing sessions. Each month also includes upcoming celestial events so you can stay up-to-date on great sky events. Any revenue generated from sales goes back into the club to help support club activities.

Be sure to grab your calendar or pick-up a few as gifts before supply runs out.

Well, it’s been almost two months since I took a picture of the Moon, and you’re probably saying to yourself, “Gee, I wonder if John is feeling all right.” Not wanting you to think that there’s something wrong with me, here is a shot of the moon that I took tonight. Yup, John’s a geek and all is right in his world. Now, go outside and look at how beautiful the moon is.

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Bill imaged the Sun again today, just before an X3.1 flare was released. Sunspot Region 2192 appears to be be forming a new sunspot group. Check it out…

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The largest sunspot region on the sun has now been dubbed the largest sunspot region of the current solar cycle. Here is a closeup view of the area from today (Wednesday, Oct. 22). Image was created by Bill Tekatch with a stack of frames from video shot with a monochrome Grasshopper 3 camera through a double stacked Lunt solar telescope.

This region should add considerable interest to images taken of tomorrow’s partial solar eclipse.

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Today, Bill imaged the new, active, sunspot region which is just coming into view on the sun. This region was responsible for an X1.1 solar flare on Saturday, October 18. It will be interesting to watch for possible further developments as this sunspot region rotates into view.

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Unbelievably, the rain stopped, the sky cleared, and when I arose at 4am this morning (which was also fairly unbelievable), the moon was bright and full and headed towards the Earth’s shadow and a total eclipse.

I observed with Jim and we had some beautiful views of the eclipsed moon in the brightening sky as dawn came. The moon was red and dark this time, but part of that could have been due to it being so low in the sky.

Here are a few pics that I took. I hope you got out and enjoyed the eclipse this morning, and if you missed it, there will be another next year.

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The public night held at Bay Front Park on Saturday night turned out to be a successful event. Even though the weather conditions looked threatening right up to the 7:30 start time of the club’s public night, we lucked out in the end. Just moments before 7:30 the skies cleared and stayed clear for the most part. I counted 8 scopes setup, both members and one scope brought by a couple with a scope they had just purchased, and needed help to setup and use. Of course they got the help from several club members. We didn’t get the crowds we  get at some public events, due to the cold temp’s and the cloud cover before we started, but I think we still had 35 to 40 people come out to see us, as well as many members that came out without a scope. Several members gathered at a local Tim’s for coffee later of course, and discussed the fun time we all had.