Globular Cluster M3

Here’s my latest image of the “Bubble Nebula”, one of my favorite objects in our galaxy. That blue “bubble” is a shell of gas pushed out by the stellar wind of the bright star just right of its center. It’s a big star, 10-20 times larger than our sun. Its radiation is also illuminating and…

Somehow I’ve neglected to go back to one of the showcase galaxies of the spring sky with newer equipment and software: M101, the “Pinwheel Galaxy.” Located about 21 million light-years away within Ursa Major, this relatively close galaxy shows lots of active star-forming regions revealed by red HII gas. Those red spots are nebulae in…

Formally IC1396, this cloud of interstellar gas and dust is thought to be an active site of new star formation. And with a little imagination, it kind of looks like an elephant’s trunk. There’s more to it than you see here, but I tried to get an interesting framing. From this angle we see a…

It’s been really cloudy lately in Central Florida, so instead of imaging from my driveway, I’ve tried using remote observatories. This particular image was taken using a telescope in Australia, using a service called telescope.live. This is the “Coalsack nebula”, a dark cloud of gas obscuring the Milky Way in the Southern hemisphere. We’re looking…

Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) is approaching the Sun – right now it’s only above the horizon in the early morning hours, but soon it will loop around and be visible in the evening. As of right now, you need a telescope to see it – it’s too dim even for binoculars. But it’s possible it…

Jupiter and Saturn both reached “opposition” over the summer, meaning they had their closest approach to Earth for the year. Florida’s summer weather conspired against photographing the planets at that time, but the skies finally cleared last night. They’re not at their closest, but… they’re close enough. I think this is my best Jupiter image…