Sombrero Galaxy

Located about 2,400 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus, the “Elephant’s Trunk Nebula” has a distinct “Pillars of Creation” vibe when viewed as a long-exposure, narrowband image in the style of Hubble. Like the “Pillars of Creation” (the Eagle Nebula,) the Elephant’s Trunk is also an area of star formation, containing some young, newly-formed stars….

As Halloween draws closer, this seems like an appropriate object to image: the “Witch’s Broom” nebula! Although to be honest, that bright star (Cygnus 56) looks more like an eye on some sort of fantastical, cosmic creature to me. In reality, it’s part of the larger Veil Nebula, which is a huge supernova remnant 1,400…

My first image from Starfront Observatories in Central Texas! They’ve been fantastic to work with so far, and I’m really stoked to be able to image remotely from anywhere, under clear, dark skies. While collecting data on M33, the “Triangulum Galaxy”, I was still fine-tuning everything and figuring things out – so there are things…

Well, it was certainly born of fire. This is planetary nebula Abell 39, one of the largest spheres in the galaxy… it’s 2.6 light-years across! It really is that color blue. You’re seeing ionized Oxygen gas blown off by the dying star in its center. Look closely for the distant galaxies in the background, including…

Imaging the planets requires completely different techniques and equipment than deep-sky stuff, and it’s something I’m not really good at yet. What matters the most is the seeing conditions – how stable the atmosphere is. A big part of taking good planetary images is just having the perseverance to get out there whenever the seeing…

This morning, my cat woke me up at 3 AM, and I noticed it was clear outside. But, the sun would start rising in just a couple of hours, so doing some super-long-exposure shot of a faint nebula wasn’t in the cards. However, globular clusters don’t take long to image, as they are relatively bright…