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The Whale and the Hockey Stick
This pair of galaxies gets its name from their shapes. Both are viewed edge-on, and from this perspective we can see how a past interaction between the two warped them both. About 6 hours of exposure time from the backyard observatory.

Revisiting M13 in Hercules
M13 is one of the most photogenic and popular globular clusters, and it’s pretty easy to see with nothing more than a pair of binoculars if you know where to look! But it’s even prettier with a long exposure – this is about 3 hours of exposure time. Blow it up to full size, and…

Another year, another Bode’s Galaxy image
Every year I try to take a better image of M81, Bode’s Galaxy. It’s located about 12 million light-years away, which is unfathomably far but close by galactic standards. Look closely, and you’ll see a faint splotchiness in the background. This is the Integrated Flux Nebula (IFN,) composed of gases that lie just outside of…

The Whirlpool Galaxy
The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) appears to be sucking the life out of its companion, NGC 5195. While these galaxies are interacting, they’re not actually connected right now – it just looks that way.

Early-morning planetary imaging
We recently obtained a new telescope for observing the planets, and we had our first good conditions for planetary imaging this morning! This is the best image of Jupiter I’ve ever gotten, and I’m hopeful that it will be even better once it gets closer to Earth in a couple of Months. Saturn’s not looking…

Orion’s Sword
If you look at the constellation Orion in the winter night’s sky, the center of Orion’s “sword” is not a star at all – it is the brightest nebula in our sky, M42 or the Great Nebula of Orion. Sitting right on top of it is technically another nebula designated M43, and above that is…