This comet will reach its brightest point a couple of weeks from now, but the skies were clear this morning so I figured I should go for it while I can! The tail’s not as pronounced as I hoped, and processing is a bit sloppy in a couple of spots. But hey, it’s a comet. Pretty.
Both on Earth, and in space! While we prepare for a year or two in California, I trained Scopey von Scopington on the California Nebula for a few nights. Pretty obvious how it got its name! This is a two-panel mosaic, consisting of narrowband SHO data for the nebula and broadband RGB for the stars….
I’ve imaged the Rosette Nebula several times, but this is the first from the dark skies of Central Texas and with some better optics as well. I took a lighter touch on the processing this time, since the data was better – and it results in a smoother, more natural look than previous takes.
The galaxies NGC4567 and NGC4568 are colliding 60 million light-years away. This is really pushing the resolution limits here; we had good “seeing” last night meaning not a lot of turbulence to smear out the light reaching my telescope, and I carefully collimated and calibrated things prior to imaging last night. About as good as…
I just added a Lunt 40mm solar telescope to the arsenal here… figuring it out was challenging, but eventually I got it working! This ain’t bad for my very first solar image; still lots to learn though.
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…
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….