Bode’s Galaxies (M81 & M82)

I trained my telescope at this pair of nebulas in Orion for a total of 10 hours. On the right is the iconic Horsehead nebula – actually a dark cloud of gas in front of the illuminated nebula behind it. To the left is the Flame Nebula. In between, in the upper-left, is the bright…

Seems I revisit this pair of galaxies, 12 million light-years distant, every year. Although they are close and bright as galaxies go, they are challenging targets for imaging – especially if you are trying to pull out the faint jets spewing out of the Cigar Galaxy on the right. This image represents over 25 hours…

A lot of things have to come together for a good image of the planets. The air needs to be as still as possible, the planet you’re imaging needs to be as directly overhead as possible, and the planet itself should be as close to the Earth as possible. And then, all your equipment has…

There are a lot of stars in this picture; the gases of the Wizard Nebula (formally SH2-142) are the birthplace of those stars, and more are being created even now. It’s located about 7,200 light-years away, and is extremely dim – it took over 9 hours of exposure time to capture this image. Your ability…

I’ve wanted to image the “Fox Fur Nebula” for awhile now – it’s pretty obvious where it is in this image! Within the same field of view is the Cone Nebula (near the bottom.) It’s all an area of gas within the Christmas Tree Cluster, which is an open cluster of stars that kind of…

As we enter summer and the Earth starts pointing us back into the plane of the Milky Way and its many nebulas, we’re nearing the end of globular cluster season. M5 seems a fitting one to end on this year; there’s nothing terribly remarkable about it, other than I think it’s pretty. It’s located about…