2016 Mercury Transit

This image was taken during a break in the clouds, at 10:10am EDT, from the backyard.  Mercury is the tiny dot above and right of center.  The blob left and below of center is Sunspot 2542.

Jupiter October 17th

Here's (from left to right) Ganymede, Io, Jupiter and Europa from this morning.  Ganymede's shadow appears on Jupiter's disk.  Taken with a 4" refractor.

Jupiter, September 17th

Jupiter in visible light, showing a very red Great Red Spot.

Jupiter in the near infrared.  Europa is visible, mid-transit, in this image.  Both images were taken with the 8" telescope.

Comet 168/P Hergenrother

Here's tiny Comet 168/P Hergenrother from last night.  It became unexpectedly bright last week and is now visible in medium-sized amateur telescopes.  It's currently close to Psi Pegasi, the bright orange star on the right.

March 21st Mars

Here is Mars from March 21st.  Conditions were good, but I was having some trouble with the big scope and didn't get as good of an image as might have been possible that night.  I may reprocess the videos later to see if I can tease out more details.

Mars in March

Here is Mars from March 9th, 2012.  Lots and lots of clouds on Mars this day.  Syrtis Major is visible on the left and there's a bright cloud hovering over the volcano Elysium Mons on the right.  A little detail is visible in the north polar cap as well.

Taken with a Celestron 9.25" SCT, 3x barlow, Skynyx video camera with RGB filters.

Saw a rabbit in the yard - no skunks though.

Old Summer Moon

Here's a test shot of the Moon from July 5th of 2011.