I'm prepping for a few outreach events this weekend and have expanded my Christmas themed demos..... I present (drumroll) ..... the light curve of...

a transit of Santa's sleigh 🤣
(To add to the Christmas ducks for the Rotato)

The Seestars are brilliant for this aren't they! Here's a picture taken by the Year 6 children in St Mary's Primary Bridgend. The look on their faces when the sun appeared on screen was priceless! Hoping to get them sunspot monitoring now

I'm currently drafting my PhD thesis, so lots of late nights (when I work best). Last night I just checked the skies before heading to bed - some clear patches 😀. So quick astro fix - moon with phone, then noticed Orion had cleared the hedge, so whipped out the Seestar (I love its grab and go!)

I had some unexpected clear sky tonight (between showers) so I grabbed the little Seestar 🔭 and headed to the end of the street to capture the lovely thin crescent moon with Earthshine. It was still clear after moonset so managed a quick Orion nebula too. The Seestar is perfect for grab and go!

cometchasers.org is an international project and today's fantastic images of Comet 12P (which outburst on 14/11) are from observations by students from Institut d'Alcarras (and their teacher Jose Manuel Perez Redondo), processed by Richard Miles from the BAA.
The shape is rather intriguing! #astro

Our Comet Chasers obtained some great images of Comet 12p again this morning.
Richard Miles was able to stack 2 sets from observations by students at St Mary's School, Bridgend ( assisted a little by their teacher, Ben). I expect some excitement in the classroom tomorrow when they see this 🤩☄️

Our www.cometchasers.org project supports students and educators to make comet observations with the LCO network, through Faulkes Telescope Project, to monitor comets.
We see Comet 12P has outburst again!
www.astronomerstelegram.org?read=16254
We're making more observations to see how it develops!