Triangulum Galaxy

A new pic! This galaxy is designated M33, it's in the Summer constellation Triangulum. I took this image on Oct 24th from the backyard, and finally got around to finish processing it tonight. I'm going to try this one again from a dark sky site sometime, I'll be able to get more detail and more accurate colors.

Good Bye Jupiter

Here is an image I took of Jupiter on the 18th. It turned out blurry because the seeing was very turbulent. Jupiter has been low in the sky all year, right above the neighbors' rooftops. I think everyone in the neighborhood has their furnace turned on now and heat from the chimneys is stirring things up too much to get a clear view. So this is probably my last Jupiter until 2010.

If you squint, you can see half of the Great Red Spot on the planet's right limb. It was visible in the eyepiece, too, even with the blurry conditions.

The seeing on objects overhead was still pretty good though, so I'll be turning my focus to objects up there next time we have a clear night.

Quick Jupiter

It was clear tonight! My new motorized focuser arrived last week, so I got to try it out tonight. It works great! The little motor doesn't make the scope wobble like it does when I focus by hand.

Here is one of my two targets tonight. I'll post the other one tomorrow since I need to head to bed. I think I skipped a processing step with Jupiter; it looks a little over-sharpened.

Sunday Night Jupiter

Here is Jupiter from Sunday night, the seeing was not very good so it's a little blurry. Caught some good glimpses through the eyepiece though. Saw a baby rabbit in the yard while I was taking the videos.

Fireworks Galaxy

I took a test shot of the Fireworks Galaxy on Saturday night. This is 45 minutes total exposure, I'll need to add several hours more exposure to get this up to snuff. No skunks sighted!

Observing Report

I took the scope out last night, but no photography. I fine tuned some of the imaging equipment and did some observing. First I took a look at the Ring Nebula - here's an image I took in July.



Next I looked at M13, a big globular cluster. Here's two old images, one from 2005 and one from June of this year.


Also took a quick peek at Jupiter and its moons.

Even More Jupiter

Here's Jupiter from Friday night, taken under the best conditions so far this year. It turned out pretty cool! Click it for the full-size image.

Eagle Nebula

Here is my first-ever photo of the Eagle Nebula. This is a stellar nursery, all these stars are newly born. The image is zoomed in on the center of the nebula, the whole thing won't fit in my field of view. I think it turned out really nice. Saw one skunk in the backyard while photographing. 92 minutes total exposure.

Huge Success

Jupiter was great tonight! Very steady skies. Also saw a skunk in the backyard. This is a quick draft of one of the images I took, and it's probably my best Jupiter image to date.

More Jupiter

Here's Jupiter from last night. You can see the Red Spot happens to be in the same position as the last Jupiter image I posted, but some of the other clouds have moved around a bit relative to the Spot since then.

Pluto on the Move

Here's a short movie (1.2MB) I made of Pluto this summer - click the image below to start the movie. Pluto is near the arrow, it's the small dot that crawls very slowly past the background stars. The movie shows 40 minutes of Pluto's motion.

Jupiter and Two Moons

Here's a photo of Jupiter I took on August 21st. You can see two of its moons on the right.

Greetings

Welcome to my new blog! I've set this up to share my photography and other stuff.

Here is an image I took last night of the galaxy M81 in Ursa Major. 56 minutes total exposure. The nearly full moon washed it out more than I had hoped, and a couple satellites wandered through as well. I will try this galaxy again on a dark night in the Spring when it's positioned much more favorably in the sky.