A couple of nights I visited my parents for my tea after work, having spent a few hours there I headed home and looking up at the sky it was one of those rare clear nights, so I decided to have an hour out on the garden with the telescope, it was a lovely 6 degrees and didn't feel cold at all, especially with my big coat on lol.
I got the telescope out as soon as I got back, low and behold it clouded over while I was getting everything out of the garage, my decision was to wait on the garden to see if the clouds would clear, and while I was waiting, I thought I'd do a timelapse of the clouds calling it "A Typical Day For Astronomy In England", anyhow it didn't look like the clouds would clear soon and so I decided to stop the time lapse and pack everything up.
It wasn't until I started to process the images when I noticed two strange flashes in the sky, working the times of the flashes out (rough estimates), each shot is 4 seconds long, just over 200 shots in this timelapse. The first flash is 12 seconds long in real time (including fading in and out), the second flash is 20 seconds long in real time (including fades). With a gap of 32 seconds in real time (worked out with my crap maths lol).
I was thinking it may have been a red beacon light on a plane, but I'm not sure with the length of time that it would have been visible.
I never noticed the flashes with my naked eye, and when I ended the timelapse was because I decided to go in as it didn't look as though the clouds would clear.
I packed the telescope up and as I went back down the garden for my camera, I couldn't believe it, the clouds had cleared, I never get my timing right lol.
Using the camera, I decided to have a go to try and capture the Orion nebula, using my Canon 24-105mm F/4.0 L series lens, I was pretty impressed the way the shots turned out, using exposures between 2-4 seconds at ISO 2000 on my Sony A7iii, for single shots of the nebula, I was well impressed.
If you are wondering how I am using a Canon lens on my Sony camera, I use the Sigma MC-11 adaptor, I didn't want to buy new lenses along with a new camera when I got the Sony lol.
The Orion nebula is about 1,300 light years from earth and it's diameter is between 30-40 light years, it is a stella nursery which is estimated to be giving birth to around 1000 stars. These sort of facts always blow my mind, and really do make me feel humble. It is one of the brightest nebulas in the sky and can be seen with the naked eye just south of orions belt in the sword (or whatever they call it lol).
I really hope you like this post and please let me know what you think those strange flashes are on the video.
Thanks for reading,
All the best :-)