Melotte 15

The Monkey Head Nebula is located about 6400 light-years away, in the constellation Orion. It’s a gorgeous cloud of gas surrounding a cluster of young stars. I processed this data a couple of different ways; one using the “Hubble palette” and another using my own color scheme. The colors represent different kinds of ionized gases:…

Located 63 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices, M91 is part of the Virgo cluster of galaxies – and if you zoom in and explore this image, you’ll find many other galaxies surrounding it, and also far in the distance beyond it.

I’ve imaged this one before, but for whatever reason I picked up way more detail on it last night. Part of it’s a better camera and better tracking on the telescope mount, but I think conditions may have just been really awesome last night. It’s not normal to have this many good nights for astrophotography…

The amateur astronomy community is pretty excited at Mars lately – it’s nearing its closest approach to Earth right now, and this one’s even closer than usual. That means some of the best viewing and imaging opportunities for the Red Planet you’ll ever get. When the skies clear and the atmosphere is still, it’s an…

The Heart Nebula is a little too big to fit within the field of view of my telescope, but its inner “heart” is interesting in its own right. This is star cluster Melotte 15, formed from the gases within the Heart Nebula – and some of that gas remains, forming interesting clouds and formations where…

The three galaxies in the constellation Leo (M65, M66, and NGC3628) are about 31 million light-years away. Each one is being seen from a different angle; the one viewed edge-on is also known as the “Hamburger Galaxy”. Each has been interacting with each other, and distorting the shapes of these galaxies through the complex dance…