Exploding star in Corona Borealis

Every eighty years or so a white dwarf star that rotates around a red giant in the constellation of Corona Borealis (Northern Crown) becomes unstable and explodes with incredible ferocity. From magnitude +10 the brightness of the binary system can elevate to +2, making it briefly visible to the naked eye (That's about as bright as Polaris, the Pole Star.

Exactly when this will take place cannot be predicted with pinpoint accuracy, so I'll try to photograph Corona for the rest of the month and hope to get lucky! The photos (taken last night) show the location of the constellation and the position of the supernova: it lies in the west between the two bright stars Vega and Arcturus.

Still plenty of sunspots

For those of you who didn't catch up with an auroral display over the past weeks, there's still a chance: the Sun is continuing its good level of activity and a CME could deliver some fireworks any time!

Born to be Wild!

Well hardly! However, Synergy are playing at a bikers' rally down in the Brecks tomorrow - should be fun if the thunderstorms stay away!

Partial lunar eclipse - but only just!

I crawled out of bed at 03.00 to see if the skies had cleared in time for the lunar eclipse: amazingly there were enough gaps in the scudding clouds to glimpse and photograph the Moon at exactly the right time - the 'peak' of the eclipse at 03.15. Not the most impressive celestial event, but somehow satisfying to witness.

The ISS: a bright pass through the clouds

The International Space Station arced overhead before going into eclipse at 9.15 last night: it was bright enough to be visible through the hazy clouds (As was the near-full Moon!)

This morning there was yet another bright aurora predicted, but sadly it was cloudy here in Broadland - no doubt it will be tomorrow, when there's a partial lunar eclipse!

Buzzards: don't they just make your day?

When you're out in the garden and the plaintive mewing of a pair of Buzzards causes you to look up, isn't their 'flirty' display wonderful to see? So free and full of obvious joy...

The Burtenshaws at All Saints, Hemblington

I was asked to help set up the projector and so on for a terrific talk by Joyce and Andrew about the life and martyrdom of St Christopher. As some of you may know, there is a marvellous late medieval mural about the saint on the northern wall of the nave - well worth a look if you're nearby.

Great to see Joyce and Andrew again, as well as friends Brian and Gerlinde in the audience!

More-a Aurora!

Another 'purple sky' evening, with a fairly bright aurora from around 10pm: more predicted, too!

Another aurora!

Checking the 'Aurora Watch UK' website before going to bed I discovered there had been a super-bright aurora from 9.00pm: I set up my camera and took some 15 second exposures and was pleased to see that, despite a bright waxing gibbous Moon, there was still plenty of colour in the northern sky.

Cley and Wells: a six mile walk for not too much!

A start at a very windy coastguards at Cley gave us just distant views of a pair of largish shearwaters and three Cattle Egrets on the Eye Field. A move to the centre hides added a couple of Little Stints but not much else, so we walked back to Bishop's: just Dunlin, Black-tailed Godwits and a decent flock of Ringed Plovers (Presumably Steppe RPs)

After coffee we went out to the sea along the East Bank: still some Sandwich Terns but, apart from the first Pinkfeet of the year, nothing else of note, so we decided to finish off with a walk through Wells Woods. No sign of the reported Wryneck in the Dell, but we did see the first of several Spotted Flycatchers. We had better views of several more by the Drinking Pool and among the pines, as well a good flock that included all the regular tits, as well as Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler.

How to find the Andromeda Galaxy, M31

Several people have e-mailed or FB'd to ask if I could give directions to find the Andromeda galaxy, which is currently well-placed high in the night sky. Despite being over 2,500 light years away from us, M31 is the nearest major galaxy: some time in the future our galaxy (the Milky Way) will collide with M31 - what a catastrophic event that will be!

Anyhow: here's a photo showing exactly where it is in relation to the familiar - and bright - constellation Cassiopeia, as well as a recent photo I took with a 300mm prime lens, using the 'startracker' facility on my Pentax K-3.

A few migrants at Horsey...

...but not the ones we were hoping for!  With a morning free, Linda and I trudged through the drizzle from the Nelson Head track to the Plantation and back: we had hoped for Pied Fly, Wryneck and Redstart, but in the event had to be content with Spotted Flycatcher, lots of Wheatears and a few Stonechats. Still: five miles before lunch was quite therapeutic - lots of seals, too!