M12 is a globular cluster in Ophiuchus. It rose late in the morning as my second target after the Leo Triplet. I recorded almost 13 hours of data on it. M12 was discovered by Charles Messier in 1764 and is a decently bright globular at 6.7 magnitude. Binoculars would reveal… Continue Reading... "M12"
UPDATE: I’d like to thank Daniel Fiordalis and Astrospheric for receiving Astrophotograph of the Month for this image. If you are looking for the best astronomy weather forecast site and app, Astrospheric is it! The Leo Triplet is a group of three galaxies in the constellation Leo. But you didn’t… Continue Reading... "Leo Triplet"
Fighter of the Night Moon. Continue Reading... "Day Moon"
Fully clear nights are still hard to find in this Ohio spring, although I have finally been able to begin a new imaging project. In the meantime, to keep my processing skills fresh, I decided to tackle another one of my favorite images that I have done, Abell 2151, the… Continue Reading... "Hercules Cluster, Redux"
There has not been a lick of clear skies for me since Thanksgiving week, and I have become mighty bored. One of my favorite images seemed like a good candidate to rework since I have new tools and new knowledge. I originally took 25 hours of data on Messier 51… Continue Reading... "M51 Redux"
Well, it took me three years, but I finally got enough clear winter nights to image the famous Horsehead nebula! Barnard 33, commonly called the Horsehead nebula, might be the most famous nebula, M42 notwithstanding. Relatively speaking, this is a dim nebula in Orion’s belt, just south of the eastmost… Continue Reading... "The Horsehead"
This is been a long cloudy winter so far, not a single clear night since a spurt I had at the beginning of November. I decided to just go ahead and start processing what I have. I was working on three targets at once, beginning with taking data on NGC… Continue Reading... "The Pacman"
The early Ohio winter actually gave me five clear nights this week during a new Moon, can you believe it? I finally got to image a target I’ve been wanting to do for years, and my widefield refractor was the perfect equipment to image it with. Messier 45, also known… Continue Reading... "Pleiades"
I was going to check out my allsky camera yesterday and found it unresponsive. Turns out the SD card didn’t weather the last half year too well. I was able to recover the config files and start fresh with a new SD card and updated software. Everything mostly seemed to… Continue Reading... "22° Moon halo"
Messier 103 is an open star cluster in Cassiopeia. It contains a few hundred stars that are around 10,000 light years away. This image is composed of 413 four-minute exposures, giving almost 28 hours of total exposure. There are 46,441 stars in this image. There is also some interstellar dust… Continue Reading... "M103"
