Darker and Starrier

Another gorgeous night at the cemetery on 7/26/22, and I’m continuing my flirtations with M101. A little less sky glow than from my previous attempt at the Pinwheel Galaxy, and a little cooler – less thermal noise in the camera. And, I timed it just right with my failing battery and managed to capture 53 images.

A dark and starry night

And stormy? Distant lightning was evident on the horizon, despite better than average transparency overhead and the beautifully clear sky from horizon to horizon. Yet, distant flashes punctuated the otherwise perfect night. No matter, the lightening must have been quite some distance away.

It blew up!

A blown-up view of M57.

Another shot at the Ring

Here’s another shot of the Ring Nebula, M57. 34, 90-second sub exposures stacked together worked better in my f10 telescope than 81, 30-second subs even though total exposure times were within 20% of each other.

…And still catching up

The Trifid Nebula – M20 Here’s a shot of the Trifid Nebula – meaning “three lobed”, designation M20. Taken spur-of-the-moment, this is a single 3-minute exposure taken at 6400 ISO. I almost never shoot at 6400, but was looking for instant gratification and figured I’d give it a try. My Canon camera delivered after just […]

Catching Up

Yes, it’s catch up time starting with this reminder – keep looking up! As an astrophotographer – amateurish as I may be, I often forget those words. I’m far too engrossed in staring at my computer screen. I’m computing all day. Work, web, emails and spreadsheets. Fortunately, my distain for cell phones (mostly) spares me […]

An eclipse – and a Hat?

I could have been a Jedi Knight on the evening of May 15, 2022 as my laser pointer cut green swaths though the thick, summer-like evening fog. The day’s thunderstorms finally gave way – just in time…to the soupy evening humidity as the sky eerily opened up a filtered view of the eclipsing moon. Fortunate […]

As the worlds – move?

You probably didn’t need me to tell you this – but our worlds are moving! I was working on some images of Saturn that I collected on September 19th and noticed its rings were in partial shadow, whereas the next most recent image showed no shadow at all. We know that the orbit of Saturn […]

Sometimes you get lucky

Planetary image processing has never been my thing, as I mentioned in a recent blog entry. There are lots of examples of amateur astronomers producing great planetary results all over the web. I like looking at planets but the processing part has always seemed tedious. And in case you haven’t noticed – I’m a Mac […]

2021 Stellafane and a little Planetary Image Processing

I first attended Stellafane in 2019 and had a fine time. Last year was canceled due to Covid, but now it’s back and I was eager to check it out for a second time. Stellafane – It’s the 85th Convention of Amateur Telescope Makers on Breezy Hill in Springfield, Vermont. So after arriving Friday night […]