The Whirlpool Galaxy

Had a couple of clear nights recently, and trained the ‘scope at the Rosette Nebula again. By combining this year’s data with last year’s, I created an image with a total 27 hours of exposure time! The Rosette Nebula is about 5,000 light-years away within the constellation Monoceros, and is the birthplace of the cluster…

There are two different clusters of galaxies in this image – the large galaxy you see is NGC 7331, part of the “Deer Lick Galaxy Group.” The smaller galaxies you see surrounding it (sometimes called “The Fleas”) are actually about ten times further away than NGC 7331. In the corner, you’ll see “Stephan’s Quintet,” a…

There’s a reason I’ve been quiet lately – we sold our house and are in the process of moving to Los Angeles! Also, Florida’s weather hasn’t been terribly cooperative either. The sad news is that we had to leave the observatory behind, and I donated its equipment to the Central Florida Astronomical Society, as LA…

The Bubble Nebula still has a soft spot in my heart… it’s what really got me going with astro-imaging years ago. It’s just such a fascinating, gorgeous object and it really inspired me the first time I saw it. Here’s my deepest exposure of it yet: over 20 hours of exposure time, in the “Hubble…

This is the Christmas Tree Cluster (turn the picture upside down and you might see it!) But the real focus here is the Cone Nebula at the bottom of the image, and the Fox Fur Nebula in the upper-right. Lots of red Hydrogen gas here being ionized by the young stars it formed. Also visible…

Located about 34,000 light-years away within the constellation Canes Venatici, this tight ball of half a million stars formed just outside the disk of our galaxy – and so its stars never got mixed in with it. They’ve just been sitting there for over 11 billion years. One of the prettiest globular clusters in the…