Nebula

The Helix Nebula – NGC7293

The Helix Nebula – NGC7293

July 25, 2024
I crunched some more data from the telescope in Chile. This is 100 sub-exposures at 120 seconds each taken with an Explore Scientific ED102 refractor on an iOptron GEM28 mount with an ASI183MC camera. Processed with Siril, GraXpert, StarNet, NXT and Photoshop.…
The Lion Nebula – Sharpless 2-132

The Lion Nebula – Sharpless 2-132

July 20, 2024
The Lion Nebula is another nebula in the northern sky’s constellation Cepheus. It's a large area with emission nebula along with several star clusters and dark dust areas. I captured this data between July 10th and July 15th, 2014 and combined a total of 24.5 hours of imaging for this photo. Here's …
The Iris Nebula – Caldwell 4, NGC 7023

The Iris Nebula – Caldwell 4, NGC 7023

July 5, 2024
The Iris Nebula is a reflection nebula in the northern sky's constellation Cepheus. It's roughly 6 light years across and 1400 light years from Earth. The bright nebula core is surrounded by a huge area of dark dust that I previously haven't had much luck capturing because of how faint it is. To bri…
M17 – The Omega Nebula

M17 – The Omega Nebula

May 3, 2024
Or the Swan Nebula...or Checkmark Nebula...or Lobster Nebula...or Horseshoe Nebula. Whatever your favorite name for it, Messier 17 is a great summer target. I shot the data for this last summer and recently processed it. This was before my CGEM OnStep and pier upgrades, so each night I had to drag m…
M42 – The Orion Nebula After My OnStep & Pier Upgrade

M42 – The Orion Nebula After My OnStep & Pier Upgrade

March 4, 2024
I just finished processing my first image after some recent astronomy upgrades. This fall, I gutted my telescope mount and rebuilt all the mechanical & electronic parts. My telescope is now permanently mounted in our back yard on a pier my brother designed & made. The new setup is tons bette…
Robotic Telescopes and the Rosette Nebula

Robotic Telescopes and the Rosette Nebula

February 17, 2013
Nine years ago I bought my first "real" telescope.  My experience the year prior with a department store telescope was horrible.  Department store telescopes aren't telescopes.  They're tubes with pretty pictures on their boxes.  I knew from looking through observatories and other people's telescope…
Backyard astronomy and the Orion Nebula (Messier 42)

Backyard astronomy and the Orion Nebula (Messier 42)

February 8, 2013
I haven't done any official research, but my guess is amateur astronomy buffs spend most of their astronomy time in their backyards.  Home-based astronomy is great because it's "right there."  It's easy to set up your telescope and view the planets, moon, and maybe even some darker deep sp…