The Eagle Nebula

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…

Domey McDomeFace’s days are numbered, I’m afraid! Our property is up for sale, and hopefully its new owner will continue to use it to produce amazing images of their own. Meanwhile, I’m taking advantage of every clear night I can, while we’re still here. Here’s one of my favorite objects: “Thor’s Helmet” or NGC2359. Like…

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…

This one’s also known as the “Silver Sliver” Galaxy, or more formally NGC 891. It’s about 30 million light-years away, well beyond our own local group. It’s thought to be quite similar to our own Milky Way! What I really geek out on, though, is the wider views here – there are so many other…

Located about 33,600 light-years away within the constellation Pegasus, Messier 15 is a globular cluster – a tight, ancient ball of stars on the outskirts of our galaxy. The Milky Way is surrounded by many such clusters; this one’s special because it’s known to host a rare intermediate-sized black hole at its center, and it…

This is M27, the “Dumbbell Nebula,” about 1600 light-years away. It’s what’s called a planetary nebula – not because it has anything to do with planets, but because early observers confused them for planets. In reality it’s far more interesting. This is what’s left over when a medium-sized star runs out of Hydrogen to fuse,…