NGC 225 is an open cluster of young stars about 2,200 light years away in Cassiopeia. Many of the stars in this cluster are binaries, though as the cluster ages gravity may disrupt some of these pairs. This is an active star forming region. There are some interesting pillars in… Continue Reading... "NGC 225"
NGC 7822 is a young star forming region 2900 light years away in Cepheus. It exhibits many interesting dust clouds and elephant trunks. In the top right corner is the open cluster NGC 7762. This is 63 hours of data taken with my little scope. Continue Reading... "NGC 7822"
With all of the rich targets available in the Milky Way this time of year, I thought to myself, why not image one I already did again? This time, I went a little extra on it. NGC 6888, commonly called the Crescent Nebula, is the result from the stellar wind… Continue Reading... "The Crescent, Cooked Three Ways"
I decided to finally try manually tracking the ISS with my Dobsonian scope. I used my ASI183MC and a 2x Barlow, aligned the spotting scope, and waited for it to come over the trees around 10:28PM. That thing is moving! It orbits the Earth with a velocity of 17,500 miles… Continue Reading... "International Space Station"
I’ve spent the last couple of months focused on other household projects, and the observatory needed it’s yearly maintenance. While waiting for the next new moon, I decided to brush up my processing skills on some old data from 2021. The Iris Nebula is a reflection nebula in Cepheus that… Continue Reading... "A new take on old data"
Aurora Borealis!? At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within your kitchen!? Yes! This is a timelapse captured from my allsky camera on May 10/11. The real show was right after dusk, and it faded as the night went… Continue Reading... "Aurora Borealis"
Messier 106, also known as NGC 4258, is a prominent intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation Venatici. It is around 24 million light years from Earth, with an apparent magnitude of 8.4 and an apparent size of 19 arcminutes, or about two thirds the apparent diameter of the Moon. M106… Continue Reading... "M106"
I finally got to see an astronomical event! The clouds tried, but I was able to see the entire eclipse. I used the big scope to take a timelapse of it, with an exposure every ten seconds. Continue Reading... "Solar Eclipse"
I took a chance on this guy, as I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. I am glad I did! I ended up getting over 42 hours on this target from October through December. The Flaming Star nebula is a an emission and reflection nebula about 1,500 light years… Continue Reading... "IC 405, the Flaming Star Nebula"
New year, new reprocess of my M51 data from 2021! My take last year left something to be desired. The photometric color calibration did not usually work well for me, so this year I wanted to give it another try with the spectrophotometric color calibration, in addition to the improved… Continue Reading... "M51, yet again"
