http://www.darkskyranger.co.uk/

Matthew, Dark Sky Ranger, Dumfries & Galloway, Dumfries (2025)

25/11/2024

Jupiter: King of the Planets!

King because it is about 2.5 times more massive than all of the other planets combined, it shines really brightly just now because we are approaching our closest to Jupiter for this year. That also means that we can see the brightest four moons of Jupiter, known as the Galilean Moons because of the guy who first pointed a telescope at them, Galileo Galilei, way back in 1610. He spotted these little points of light which he soon observed to be moving around Jupiter and he realised that these must be moons!

Before Galileo, all observations of the night sky were by naked eye viewing, which is the main method we use on Dark Sky Tours and is excellent for seeing the vastness of our galaxy in an area of low light pollution. His most famous telescope had a magnification of x20, which is only slightly smaller than the magnification of the astro-binoculars we also use, meaning we can look closer at Jupiter in much the same way as he did.

This photo was taken on 20th November at 8.45pm and gives a similar perspective to what Galileo would have seen through his eyepiece. The four Galilean Moons are laid out in a line. From the left, we have Europa, Io, Ganymede and Callisto. Io is the closest to Jupiter, with Europa orbiting a bit further out. Then comes Ganymede, with Callisto, far out to the top right, having the longest orbit. The inner three are orbiting so quickly that you can actually observe their orbital paths in relation to Jupiter over the course of an evening!

If you look closely, you can also make out some of the coloured striping of the jet streams on Jupiter!

We have seen so much cloud recently. Although it is really frustrating for a Galloway Forest International Dark Sky Park Ranger and for those who want to join one of my Dark Sky Tours, a look back at previous years shows that this is actually pretty normal for this time of year. The skies will clear! In fact, there are a few nights of clear skies forecast for the middle of this week. I look forward to running some more public Dark Sky Tours soon.

Wishing you clear skies!

24/10/2024

Lots of you have been asking me when I will be running my next Dark Sky Tour and I have not been able to give you an answer. For us to live in such a lush, green landscape takes a lot of rain and this often comes over weeks at a time. The forecast suggests that conditions will start to improve around the middle of next week and I will plan more tours as soon as possible. Credit: BBC Weather for forecast pic.

In the meantime, I shall get back to my stardance!

Wishing you clear skies!

14/10/2024

Comet A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)

Tonight, the western skies were clear enough and the comet is now high enough in the sky to be seen with the naked eye. This is a single, 3.2 second photo, showing both the bright nucleus and a lot of the tail.

This shot was taken just after 7.40pm, while the sky was still light. I took some more photos about half an hour later but the cloud had increased and I couldn't pick out any more detail. From what I saw, however, the tail is much greater in size than what I picked up in my earlier shots.

Although this comet is now moving further away from us and will get progressively fainter, it will be seen later in the evening. If seen after dark, it promises to be a real spectacle.

Wishing you clear skies!

13/10/2024

It was great to head back to Loch Doon, a location I haven't been at for a long time. Thank you to the lovely couple who brought loads of enthusiasm to the evening!

The Moon was very bright but it didn't stop us viewing Saturn's rings, three of Jupiter's Galilean Moons, with Io moving out from behind Jupiter and becoming more visible as the night progressed, and the Andromeda Galaxy.

Wishing you clear skies!

12/10/2024

Some more photos from Thursday night, showing how much the aurora changes through the evening.

Having recently and accidentally photographed a SAR (Stable Auroral Red) Arc, I now find myself looking at the bright lights in the sky in a different way. When I was driving home over open moorland, the sky was still bright but there were no structures visible, so I stopped the car and set up my camera to look south. The majority of the sky had a green hue but there was a red line between this and the remaining area of dark sky. The third and fourth photos show the eastern and western edges of this . I took a series of photos, following from east to west, in the hope of creating a panorama. Now, all I have to do is learn how to do that!🤣

As I took those photos, I noticed that there was more movement in the north and the second photo shows that, with red and green curtains overlapping.

Wishing you clear skies!

11/10/2024

I was hopeful that last night was going to allow us to see some of the aurora but I wasn't expecting it to dominate the evening. We started by looking at Saturn and some constellations but the skies quickly lit up with reds and greens, so bright that they were hiding even the brightest stars!

The show really started around 8.20pm and I took my last photo at 11.45pm. I understand it all kicked off again in the early hours. I was impressed by the bright reds on display, while green curtains went from pale to bright and back again. I particularly loved seeing the colours reflected in the loch. Beautiful!

I will be out with a private group tomorrow night and the skies are forecast to be clear again. Will the northern lights show up again? We'll have to wait and see!

Wishing you clear skies!

09/10/2024

Tomorrow night is going to be clear and great for stargazing, while the rest of the week is to be cloudy and wet, so I am going to run a Dark Sky Tour at Clatteringshaws, starting at 7.30pm. At this time of year, windows to the stars are at a premium, so we have to take every opportunity to get out there.

Saturn and Jupiter will be on show and there are a few, minor meteor showers in play, so there is a good chance of seeing shooting stars. This may be the last clear night for over a week, so we have to make hay while the stars shine! Let me know if you would like to join me.

Wishing you clear skies!

08/10/2024

Finally, clear skies and northern lights combine!

Last night, in the magical setting of Auchinleck House gardens, my guests and I watched as the northern lights sprung into life.

The first signs started to show just after 8pm but the real show kicked in at 1030pm, when the first pillars started to appear. It was very active for about 10 minutes, then calmed down again. Clouds impacted the visibility but could not mask the brightness and the colour.

Wishing you clear skies!

06/10/2024

The excitement which has been building for what will happen when the most recent coronal Mass ejection from the Sun hits out magnetosphere remains unfulfilled! For the last few nights, the northern horizon has been much brighter than the rest of the sky but that's all I have seen. Coupled with the fact that we have had only intermittent gaps in the cloud, it has felt like a game of cat and mouse.

Lat night, the clouds cleared a bit, around 10pm, and I could see that the sky was glowing, so I took a few photos to see if anything showed up. No luck but I did get to look at The Plough pointing to Polaris in top dead centre of the photo and it was a beautiful, autumn evening. 😁

05/10/2024

Pleaides Star Cluster: Seven Sisters

One of the most prominent areas of the sky, currently visible from late evening in the east, The Pleaides is associated with many myths . The one which makes me smile is that they are reputed to be Seven Sisters. As there are only 6 which are visible to the naked eye, the myth counters by saying that one was too beautiful for mortal eyes to see! Smart myth tellers have an answer for everything.🤔 I wonder if one of the original seven, bright stars has died since the myth was originally told.

The star cluster is passing through a cloud of dust and you can just make it out in this photo, which was taken at 840mm equivalent, with a stack of 9 x 1 minute shots. The stars are definitely overexposed but I learn something new every time I point my cameras at the skies and this is the best I have manages to image the dust clouds, so I'm happy with that. It is still not as good as the view through astro-binoculars, though, which show the remainder of the 300 stars in the cluster in much more detail.

Wishing you clear skies.

03/10/2024

I used my longest lens to photograph Andromeda Galaxy and the tiny Triangulum Galaxy last night. Andromeda's massive gravity is pulling Triangulum apart and I reckon I can see that in action in this pic (if I squint the right way!😁), as the cloudy swirl around Andromeda appears to extend out towards its neighbour.

We will be turning our eyes to phenomena much closer to home tonight, as there is a prediction for a good display of the northern lights. There is also a lot of cloud forecast for tonight, so we will have to do the star dance and keep fingers crossed for gaps in the cloud at the right moments.

Wishing you clear skies!

02/10/2024

Hello again, Saturn!

Tonight has been as clear as last weekend but with really still conditions. Because of this, I was able to take much clearer photos of Saturn. Seeing Saturn's rings never loses its magic for me.

Wishing you clear skies.

02/10/2024

Saturn, the second largest planet in our solar system, is currently around 800 million miles (1.3 trillion KM) away from us. We recently passed as close as we get, as we overtook it on our annual journey round the Sun.

That distance means that it is just possible to see its rings through astro-binoculars and requires a really long lens to photograph them. When you look at many camera photos of the night sky, it is really easy to capture much more than you can see with the naked eye (The Milky Way and fainter showings of the northern lights are good examples of this) but the planets are different. Instead of using the camera to gather as much light as possible, you have to turn the settings to such low speed, exposure and aperture that the camera is metaphorically squinting. By doing so, all other lights in the sky fade from view and Saturn appears as a small, faint point of light but its rings become clearly visible, in much the same way as you see them through astro-binoculars.

The next challenge is for stability. Much as I tried, I could not fully protect the camera from the wind which was picking up on Friday night, so the massive amount of cropping required to get Saturn's rings to show, even with my longest lens, mean that the image is, to put it politely, smudgy. Here it is, though, and it is worth looking for Saturn in the south east after dark.

Wishing you clear skies.

01/10/2024

The forecast for Wednesday and Thursday is for clear skies in the evening, so I am running a tour on both nights. I know it's last minute but it would be a shame to miss such good opportunities, especially when the sky will be moon-free!

Let me know if you want to join me, via WhatsApp, text or email.

01/10/2024

Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system, so big that all of the other planets could fit inside it with room to spare. It is going to be on view in the evening skies from now until the end of spring, getting brighter and brighter as we get closer to it.

Even now, its four main moons are easy to spot with binoculars. Io, Europa, Ganymede and Calisto show up as bright points of light and you can watch them change positions over the course of an evening, as they orbit the planet.

I include the first photo because a plane photo bombed in the most perfect way!

If you would like to join me for a Dark Sky Tour on Thursday, please get in touch.

Wishing you clear skies.

30/09/2024

Andromeda Galaxy and its small neighbour, Triangulum

Another of my hoped for targets on Friday night, viewed from Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park. It was a great night for a Dark Sky Tour and I am looking forward to sharing many more such nights with you over the coming months.

Tomorrow, I will post some photos I took of Jupiter and Saturn, always a challenge to take with a DSLR.

The forecast for Wednesday and Thursday nights looks really good, so I will run a tour if enough people would like to go stargazing....

Wishing you clear skies.

29/09/2024

Just another night of staragazing in Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park, under a sky illuminated by billions of stars.

Friday night proved to be as good as the forecast, with not a cloud to be seen and plenty of spectacular sights to see. This photo is looking west to the Great Rift of the Milky Way, with at least 5 satellites and one shooting star on show. That's the second night in a row that I have captured a shooting star, something I am usually better at missing!

An unusual feature of this picture is that the bright satellite to the right of the Milky Way is blue. There is also a fainter one below it. I have checked and that is definitely the way it was captured, not a colour edit. I didn't change the colour balance from the original , RAW file and the satellite shows up blue on that too.

The Milky Way was glorious, sweeping across the sky from south west to north east. Looking into any part of it revealed more stars than I can count. The cooler nights are making viewing much better, too. Yes, it means cold fingers but that's what gloves are for!

Wishing you clear skies!

27/09/2024

9 years ago tonight, I took part in my first Dark Sky Tour, a collaboration with Elizabeth Tindal, Freelance Ranger. We had just finished the Dark Sky Ranger training we had been given by Galloway and Southern Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere and The Forestry Commission (now Forestry and Land Scotland).

That first night was accompanied by the rising of the Harvest Moon and clear skies. I am heading out again tonight, also under clear, moonless skies, for another Dark Sky Tour and to take photographs of some of my favourite sights; The Milky Way, Saturn's Rings, Jupiter's Moons, Andromeda Galaxy and The Pleiades.

I look at this picture and I think of how much I have learned in the last nine years, how many amazing people I have shared the night sky with and all the wonderful sights I have seen. Thank you to all those who helped us to have this wonderful opportunity. The Galloway Forest International Dark Sky Park is a wonderful place to be!

Wishing you clear skies!

Matthew, Dark Sky Ranger

25/11/2024

24/10/2024

14/10/2024

13/10/2024

12/10/2024

11/10/2024

09/10/2024

08/10/2024

06/10/2024

05/10/2024

03/10/2024

02/10/2024

02/10/2024

01/10/2024

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30/09/2024

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27/09/2024

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