The Moon and Regulus...

On December 10th the Moon occulted (passed in front of) the bright star Regulus, leading star of the constellation Leo. Unfortunately, this occurred during the daytime, but I did manage a photo just before dawn that shows the beautiful blue-white colour of Regulus.

North Coast with Brian

Since I needed to pick up some smoked fish from the excellent Smokehouse at Brancaster Staithe, Brian and I started at Titchwell, walking out to the sea to look for divers and grebes. There were lots of waders: Sanderling, Knot, Grey Plover, Turnstone and so on. Eventually we found a couple of Great Northern Divers, as well as a Slavonian Grebe and a Black-throated Diver - too far out for useable photos. Several Red-breasted Mergansers scooted by offshore. On the way back to the carpark we added Water Rail to the tally, as well as (probably!) the reported Siberian Chiffchaff. (Excellent top photo by Brian!)

The move to Cley for coffee wasn't particularly productive, so we carried on to Ludham Airfield where we eventually located two Bewick's Swans among a herd of Whoopers.

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It begins!

It is impossible to be tasteless when you're nearly 75!

Conjunction!

The Moon and Mars were pretty close last night, the Moon having 'overtaken' Jupiter during the daytime.

Sunday night

Saturday night

December wildlife survey at Hemblington Church

Despite the cool breeze and hazy overcast, Linda, Sue, Peter and I carried out the monthly survey at 'the little church on the hill'. Not too much about, but enough to make things worthwhile. (Linda has obtained some terrific video on her trail cam: I'll post those once she sends them to me!)

Sawbills

Just for completeness: another 'set' of birds I've encountered in Norfolk. These delightful fish-eating ducks have serrated bills to help them cling on to their prey: these are typically long and thin, There are three regular UK species: Red-breasted Merganser and Goosander are both breeders, while Smew are somewhat scarce winter visitors. A fourth species - the Hooded Merganser - was only admitted to the British list in 1999, so the two I've seen (both females: one at Titchwell, one at Cley) are not strictly 'tickable'! I didn't manage a photo of either...

Seven planets: no telescope!

Regular readers may remember that I reluctantly sold my telescope and CCD camera outfit because a new 'neighbour' insisted on having super-bright outdoor lights (back and front) turned on most nights, all night. However, I've found that my Canon R7 and Pentax K3 can image even quite faint objects down to magnitude 10, given a sturdy tripod and appropriate exposure / aperture. Using them, I've managed to capture all seven planets - eight, including the Earth - as well as excellent shots of the Moon and several comets. A terrific help if you fancy having a bash is the Heavens Above website, from which you can obtain all the date and location data you need!

Here are the seven planets, in order outwards from the Sun:

Last night's 'Cold Moon'

Terrifically clear skies last night: the full Moon was visible from moonrise to moonset!

Another Comet!

...but only just! The snappily-named Comet C/2025 T1 Atlas is conveniently located just below Cygnus, but a long exposure and a star chart are needed to find it, since it's a dim magnitude 9.7. (The tree is lit up by the nearly-full Moon!)

As anticipated: a beautiful aurora

As I'd hoped, yesterday's intense solar activity produced a pretty impressive aurora last night, from around 7.00 - 8.30 pm. The near-full Moon diminished the effect a little, but the display was visible to the naked eye. Friend and neighbour Sue invited me into her back garden (which enjoys an unrestricted dark northern horizon) allowing me to take these photos:

Amazing sunspots!

Yet another big cluster of sunspots is crawling around the Sun's surface: maybe we'll see more auroral displays soon (or - God forbid -  a Carrington Event)