The Needle Galaxy

Imaging deep sky objects from a suburban driveway forces one to find ways to deal with light pollution. Light pollution is the enemy of astronomers – but in reality, there are ways around it. Some of the most beautiful objects in the cosmos are called emission nebula. They are clouds of gas, often where new…

Taken just prior to Halloween in 2018, the southeastern knot of the Eastern Veil Nebula takes on a ghostly appearance when imaged in the Hubble palette with narrowband filters.

There are two different clusters of galaxies in this image – the large galaxy you see is NGC 7331, part of the “Deer Lick Galaxy Group.” The smaller galaxies you see surrounding it (sometimes called “The Fleas”) are actually about ten times further away than NGC 7331. In the corner, you’ll see “Stephan’s Quintet,” a…

This galaxy is only known as M74. At 32 million light-years away, it’s about as far as you can get for a halfway decent image taken from Earth. It is a “grand design” face-on spiral galaxy. Look closely and you’ll see a few more galaxies in the background that are much more distant, and therefore…

Our new observatory is starting to prove its worth… the Trifid Nebula is an object I’ve always wanted to capture, but in our previous location it was too low in the sky and was always obstructed by trees. Further complicating matters, it is a summertime object, and here in Florida summertime is the worst time…

Last night was hazy, cloudy, and with an almost-full moon that would wash out anything else I could try to image. So, I imaged the Moon itself. Tried out some new techniques; usually you would use a specialized telescope with a specialized camera and specialized software for shooting the Moon, but I wanted to see…