Learn Astrophotography with Frank!

(Image credit: ddmitr, iStockPhoto.com) Every picture on this site was taken from a suburban driveway in a “red zone” on the light pollution map, literally underneath a streetlight. Every year more subdivisions and apartment buildings spring up in my city, and light pollution from the metro Orlando area just keeps getting worse. There are four…

Part of our Local Group of galaxies, the Triangulum Galaxy (M33) is about 3 million light years away and the most distant object visible to the naked eye under dark skies.

Last night I set out to image Jupiter and Saturn, but both are pretty far away at this point, and the atmospheric conditions weren’t great. So I tried for the Moon instead. We take our nearest celestial neighbor for granted – there’s a whole world right next to us, waiting for us to explore it!…

It’s not the title of a children’s story – it’s a pair of galaxies 30 million light-years away that look like, well, a whale and a hockey stick. Officially their names are NGC 4631 and NGC 4656.

11 light years away, the “bubble” itself is formed from the solar wind of the large, hot star inside of it. Imaged with narrowband filters.

A spiral galaxy almost 40 million light-years away, viewed edge-on. The dust lane in the center of its disk, and central bulge are clearly visible. A couple of its smaller, satellite galaxies can also be seen here.