Markarian’s Chain

It’s globular cluster season, so here’s another one! M80 is found within the constellation Scorpius, and lies a distant 32,600 light-years away – making it one the small side from our vantage point. It contains several hundred thousand stars, and is one of the denser globular clusters in our galaxy. The faint galaxy in the…

NGC253 is most commonly known as the “Sculptor Galaxy,” because it’s found within the constellation Sculptor. You probably haven’t heard of Sculptor – that’s because it is considered a Southern-hemisphere constellation, and it’s only visible in the US from Southern states such as Florida. It’s also known as the “Silver Coin Galaxy.” It’s part of…

There’s a comet in the sky! They don’t appear this bright very often, so don’t miss what could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a comet with your own eyes. It’s tough to spot here in suburbia with your eyes, but it’s easy to see with binoculars. Its official name is C/2020 F3 NEOWISE. Just…

The “Jellyfish Nebula” is a supernova remnant in the constellation Gemini, about 5,000 light-years away. It’s the gas blown off from a star that exploded, sometime between 3,000 and 30,000 years ago – we’re really not sure when it happened. But it makes for quite a spectacle! I was plagued with technical issues while capturing…

Granted this is only a portion of it, but for the life of me I don’t see a pelican in this thing. But, it’s still pretty. I processed this object two ways: using the “Hubble palette” that maps red, green, and blue to Sulfur, Hydrogen, and Oxygen emissions (that results in the pretty blue one)…

Commonly known as the “Tadpoles Nebula” for obvious reasons, this is somehow my first time imaging this one! Shot in narrowband / Hubble palette remotely from Starfront Observatories in Texas. Focusing in on the “Tadpoles” makes for a more interesting image, but here’s the wider field shot it was cropped from, which is also fun…