Astronomy n' stuff

What's on this page:

What equipment?What equipment should you start astronomy with? General resourcesVarious handy things to avail yourself of BooksVarious written materials to refer to when observing Video & audioSpecific shows and viddies about astronomy to enjoy and learn from Online referencesLots of different astronomical resources online SharingWays to share your interest in astronomy with others Online hangoutsPlaces to talk about astronomy online Local groupsFace-to-face astronomy societies nearby Remote observingUsing the internet to get access to telescopes far away, under very good skies Image galleriesVarious places online to view gorgeous astro images Apps & programsComputer programs to use in observing or processing Linux and Open-source observing appsVarious open-source apps to use in stargazing Other free appsApps that aren't open source but which don't cost money Non-free programsPrograms to use in stargazing that cost money Astrophotography appsPrograms I've used when processing images My imagesSome of my astrophotography Quick referenceWhat's up in the sky, at a glance

One of my strongest early memories is seeing the Milky Way for the first time over Lake Superior at a cabin my parents had rented for us. All the lights were out, and there was hardly any light pollution from anywhere else. The Milky Way was clear as could be, and it nearly floored me. What a big, beautiful night sky there is! I've been interested in astronomy ever since.

Looking at the stars can have different effects on people… For some people, it makes them feel small and insignificant, like they are powerless against a cruel universe. For me, though, looking at the stars reminds me of how small my problems are, and how the universe doesn't really deal in "problems" anyway, and how much beauty we can find in the world. Sometimes that beauty is hiding behind annoying cloud cover, but it's always there.

While I was interested in astronomy as a kid, it took a long time to turn into a major hobby. I took astronomy in college, and continued to have an interest in space science and NASA images, but never really had a chance to do much observing myself. I lived in the biggest city in Taiwan for many years, and the light pollution there meant that being able to see even a single star was a lucky occurence. But my interest in astronomy continued, in spite of inability to actually see anything myself. When I came back to the US in 2004, I knew early on that one of the hobbies I wanted to get back into was stargazing.

What equipment?

What stuff should you buy if you want to get started in astronomy? This is a question I've gotten often enough to make it worth answering here.

The only short, accurate answer is "It depends". It depends on a lot of factors: Where you're going to use the equipment, what you're going to do with it, how much money you have, what your level of understanding the night sky is, etc. etc. The question is so complex, I've actually toyed with the idea of trying to do a "choose your own adventure"-style system to help make different recommendations. Also, there are already a million websites out there that give a million recommendations about what kinds of equipment to get, so it's not like I have much more wisdom than anyone else about this.

That's unfortunately not a very satisfying answer, though. A lot of people would like much more specific answers. So, with the massive caveat that a) you should only take advice on the internet with a grain of salt, and b) I can only make general recommendations based on my own experience, here are some things I'd recommend, based on a few different expense levels (prices based on c. levels):

• US$0: A lot of people don't realize that you can do a pretty remarkable amount of astronomy with approximately zero money outlay. Check out some good books from the library; join a local astronomy club at the student level, if they have such a thing; download images from the Hubble Legacy Archive and process them like Judy Schmidt does; go to a planetarium on free public nights; download some open source or otherwise free resources; etc. Perhaps most importantly, go to a dark place when the sky is clear and learn the constellations, view the Milky Way, see some aurorae, watch for meteors, etc. If you have access to a dark place and good vision, you're already equipped with basically the best instruments available to go spot meteors: Your eye(s). (Binoculars, telescopes, etc. will make finding meteors considerably harder, not easier.)

• US$50: If you want to spend a bit more money on astronomy gear for observing, I recommend getting a pair of cheap binoculars (those 8x40 or 8x50 ones at your local Big Box store will do fine). Any 'telescope' you can get for this much money will probably be more frustration than it's worth (images may be highly magnified, but they will also be extremely dim; and the mount is likely to be so poor that actually finding anything or keeping it in view will be an exercise in annoyance). You can see a lot of great stuff with binoculars.

• US$100: If you can afford this much, I still recommend the above, just with the addition of good books such as the The Backyard Astronomer's Guide and/or The Year-Round Messier Marathon. Binoculars and a good book can keep you busy for a long time. If you have a little left over, maybe get a green laser pointer so you can point out what you've learned to others; and if you can afford it and have one available, definitely join your local astronomy club. (Many clubs have astronomy gear you can even borrow, so you can try out all sorts of cool gear and make my advice completely superfluous.)

• US$300: If you can swing this much, it's time to start thinking about buying an actual telescope. I (and tons of other people) basically recommend one telescope: a 6" basic, fully-manual Dobsonian. It may not look like your stereotype of a telescope, but trust me, a good 6" Dobsonian can last you a lifetime.

  A smaller scope could be okay, but won't have a lot of light-gathering power and thus a lot of objects will appear very dim; a bigger telescope may be too heavy or too complicated to get much actual use out of. And trying to get a telescope with go-to, or an equatorial mount or whatever at this price level will probably also be an exercise in frustration. At this price level, a telescope with go-to or other fancy features will probably need to scrimp on optical quality, mount quality, go-to quality or all the above.

  A nice, simple, point-and-observe 6" Dobsonian won't guide you to objects, but that's actually kind of a good thing. There's not much wrong with just finding objects automatically and right away, but there is also something to be said for learning the night sky. The skills I learned with my 6" Dobsonian have served me well with a variety of other telescopes and equipment. I would still have my 6" Dobsonian if I hadn't had to sell it due to non-astronomy factors.

• US$500: If you've got this much cash to swing at the start, you're kind of out of my league. It's probably time to think about getting a bigger scope (perhaps 8"; much bigger than that is tempting fate that the scope will be too big to actually get much use out of), or one with go-to and good aperture. Realistically, though, I'd say do some combination of the above: get a 6" Dobsonian and a laser pointer and binoculars and a membership in your local astronomy group and some good books, etc.

General Resources

All different kinds of things to help with your observing.

Books

Of course, this is one of the best ways to inform yourself about the universe. Most of the best information about astronomy is on printed pages. Here are some of my favorite observing-related books.

• The Backyard Astronomer's Guide: This is a great book. It has excellent information about all kinds of topics: choosing the best eyepiece, what kind of scope to start with, how to set up an equatorial mount, how to do star-hopping (the process of moving from one arrangement of stars to another to find obscure objects), how to keep an observation log, etc. etc. The authors have a very pragmatic approach throughout. For example, when discussing how to set up an equatorial mount, they basically say that they think beginners shouldn't start with GEMs — but since a lot do anyway, they talk about how to get working with one.

  They also do a really good job of keeping expectations reasonable and letting you know what kinds of things you can actually expect to see when you're at the eyepiece. A lot of books use professional, long-exposure astrophotos as if they're what you'd see when looking through a moderate-size telescope; this is horribly misleading. What you'll really see when you're looking at most galaxies, nebulae, globular clusters, etc. is some kind of little grey fuzzball. An amazingly beautiful, incredibly distant fuzzball, with ancient photons hitting your eyes after traveling through space for centuries or eons. But still, a fuzzball. It's important to have realistic expectations.

  The accompanying website for the book is also pretty great, and it gives a good sample of the kinds of information found in the book.

• The Year-Round Messier Marathon: A great book of star charts, dedicated to helping you find your way around the various Messier objects in the sky.

  (What are the Messier objects? Charles Messier was an 18th century astronomer who wanted to find comets; he made a list of ~110 celestial objects that are not comets, and this turned out to be a great collection of deep-sky objects such as nebulas, galaxies and clusters for amateur astronomers.)

  The book has a good description of how to do star-hopping, and has some quite nice finder charts for all the Messier objects, as well as good background information about each of the objects. Like the Backyard Astronomer's Guide, this book gives very realistic depictions of what the Messier objects will look like through a telescope (and also through a finder scope). It's a handy field reference for the sky, especially if you're sticking to the Messier list.

  The book's webpage gives a nice sample finder chart for Orion and a full table of contents.

• Turn Left at Orion: Another great beginners' book. Better in some ways than Year-Round; it has some better finder charts, has slightly glossier paper (important when you're considering dew), and doesn't just focus on Messier objects. Instead, it's basically a catalogue of good objects for binoculars and small telescopes. Some of the Messier objects are hard to spot even in a huge telescope, so if you're not trying to work through the Messier list, Turn Left may be a better book to start with. And like the two books mentioned above, it gives nicely realistic depictions of what objects will look like.

• College astronomy textbook: If you want the most solid understanding of what you're actually looking at when you see the night sky, get yourself a college astronomy textbook. Up-to-date ones will include all the important concepts, such as how distance is measured in astronomy, how stars are born and die, how galaxies form, how we can wring the maximum possible information from the light cast by an object, what the fate of the universe is, etc. etc.

  I'm not going to link to particular textbooks, because a) they keep changing and b) I'm not au courant enough to judge what the best one(s) are these days. Suffice to say, if it's being used in a fair number of college courses, it's probably pretty good.

• Magazines about astronomy: There are quite a few magazines about astronomy out there, and some are very good.

  Astronomy is probably the one I read most often, because it's the most readily available. The coverage is good, with a nice mix of articles and features. I feel like a lot of it is somewhat fluffy, with a slight preference for style over substance, but that's a minor grumble. I like it and keep reading it.

  If I could get it on a regular basis, I might read Sky News as my main astronomy magazine. It's a bit thinner than Astronomy, but that's because it's not as fluffy. (Sky News appears to have nothing to do with the Murdoch-owned news channel. Luckily.)

  When I've read it, BBC Sky at Night Magazine (the companion publication for the long-running BBC series) has also been pretty good, with a nice mix of depth and fun.

  One magazine I'm going to specifically recommend you not read is Sky & Telescope. The magazine tends to be very in depth, but unfortunately, the publishers engaged in some terrible transphobia a few years ago, and haven't done anything that I can see to make up for it.



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Video & Audio

When you don't have time to take a college class, or clouds prevent going out to observe, there's still a lot of great ways to watch the night sky.

• Cosmos: A Personal Voyage: One of my favorite astronomy-related TV series, the original Cosmos is a great place to start if you'd like a good overview of issues in astronomy and science in general. The series explores a huge number of interesting and important issues: What does the universe look like? What is it made of? How do we know what we know? How have misunderstandings led us astray in the past, and how can we watch out for misunderstandings to come?

  It's amazing how much detail the series goes into — it touches on topics ranging from comparative linguistics to special relativity. Some of what he says is a little controversial, but it's mostly just incontovertible science. And even though he'd love to have been contradicted by more recent research, Sagan says very little that needs emendation.

  No less important is the beauty of the narration. Soter, Druyan and Sagan crafted a superb script that manages to be concise, poetic and truthful.

  Find this in a library, or maybe on YouTube — it frequently shows up there. Me, I'm not sure how Sagan felt about internet piracy, or how Soter or Druyan feel, and I like supporting art that I appreciate. I therefore bought my own copy of the DVDs, available from CarlSagan.com.

• Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey: A mostly worthy companion to Sagan's original series. It adds a lot of great detail to things the original series couldn't say much about, like the composition of the seas on Titan or current theories on multiverses. The series does a pretty good job of capturing the wonder and gravitas that Sagan conveyed in the original series. There are some slightly annoying politics implicit in the series that I won't go into here, but mostly, I like the new series a lot.

• Deep Sky Videos: This series, part of the Nottingham Science channel's many, many subchannels, explores a lot of different aspects of astronomy: how telescopes work, what globular clusters are, how observing time is allocated at major observatories, etc. etc.

• Forrest Tanaka: He's a friendly photographer, and he has some very nice videos about astrophotography on his YouTube channel. He gives a lot of important details and his videos have quite high production values.

• Star Gazers: This is the modern incarnation of the Jack Horkheimer weekly astronomy TV show. They give lots of interesting tips: what's going on in the sky, how to do basic observing, where constellations come from, etc. etc. It's pretty rewarding, regardless of your level of experience.

  Their website has the latest videos, as well as listings of where to catch the show on TV.

• Astronomy Cast: This podcast from Pamela Gay and Fraser Cain deals with all sorts of topics related to astronomy: famous scientists, the latest on exoplanets, how to do astrophotography, etc. etc. Check their extensive archive for past shows.

• Awesome Astronomy: A nifty podcast from a trio of British folks (Ralph, Jen, and Paul) gives a great mix of observing tips, space news, astronomy research, and other fun. As of early 2022, they've started a Youtube channel as well. They release podcasts quite regularly, but don't always keep the archive on their website up to date; I've often found their podcast through the 365 Days of Astronomy archive.



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Online references

Lots of different sites to help you know when or what to observe.

Clear Sky Charts

Attilla Danko's Clear Sky Charts use weather data from the Canadian Meteorological Center to predict observing conditions in a huge number of places across North America. The site gives hourly estimates of cloud cover, humidity, seeing, etc. — superbly useful for astromical observing.

Charts for Minnesota: Here's a list of all the Clear Sky Charts for Minnesota. The main Clear Sky Chart website has all sorts of links, including contact information if you'd like to request a chart for your own favored observing location.

See also the Quick Reference section of this page for live versions of the Clear Sky charts for three of my favorite sites.

Where are dark-sky sites?

Where near you can you see the Milky Way easily at night? If you live in a light-polluted place like me, the answer may be "very far away indeed". Unfortunately, the world is becoming more light polluted.

Of course, we shouldn't let light pollution stop us from observing. I've been able to see some incredibly faint objects within a mile or so of downtown Minneapolis. But it's nice to know where the dark skies are near you, and it's good to keep working to preserve the dark skies we have.

• Jonathan Tomshine's Dark Sky Finder is a nice overlay for Google maps that shows how bad the light pollution is for various locations in North America. Very handy for finding sites that are not light polluted, or at least less light polluted.

• The International Dark-Sky Association fights to keep dark skies available. They provide maps of dark sky locations for the whole world, and give advice on the kinds of lighting we should be pushing for and using.

• The World Atlas of Artificial Sky Brightness gives good detail about dark skies for the whole world.

• If you're in Minnesota, definitely check out the Minnesota Astronomical Society. They have some good observatories in pretty dark places; their Cherry Grove site is in a nice dark location south of the Twin Cities, and their Long Lake Conservation Center is even darker.

  If you're not in Minnesota, find the astronomy club nearest you. They may well have some great observatories that you can avail yourself of. See Local Astronomy Groups, below.

SEDS

The Students for the Exploration and Development of Space have a very extensive website, with lots of different information and projects.

Their Messier database, in particular, is very handy, with tons of information about all 110 Messier objects. They also link to a lot of different observations of the objects, so you can see what (for example) the Pleiades look like through a 6" telescope versus through a 20" heavy-duty astrograph. SEDS' database has numerous ways to access the data; I find their icon sheet, which shows thumbnails of all the objects, very handy and beautiful.

Heavens Above

This website provides all sorts of observing resources, including where various satellites are (including the ISS), current sky charts from any location at any time (print your own dedicated planisphere!), and all sorts of current information about the Moon.

Your Sky

This website provides a virtual sky, virtual horizon and virtual telescope, giving simulated views for any location or date on Earth. Set your latitude, longitude and time, and you get a very nice window on the night sky. The graphics are a little primitive, but almost as good as Xephem, and the website is very fast.

Sites for star charts

It's always nice to know what you're looking at when you go out observing, whether it's naked-eye or using expensive equipment.

Planispheres

A good place to start is with a planisphere, one of those rotating discs that shows what the sky above will look like. You can buy them, of course; and larger ones will both show more and be more readable in the field.

But there are also websites where you print and craft your own planisphere. Here is an example from the Ventura County Astronomical Society.

Star atlases

If you do a lot of observing, and especially if you start using bigger equipment, you'll probably want to get a deeper guide. Books such as Messier Marathon or Turn Left at Orion give some very nice charts for binoculars or smaller telescopes.

If you eventually exhaust those resources, you may want a star atlas that goes even deeper. And there are some remarkably wonderful atlases online, completely free. (Of course, printing them out and perhaps getting them laminated and bound wouldn't be free, but still, they're very nice resources. And you could possibly put them on a computer for field use.)

• Taki's 8.5 Magnitude Star Atlas: Toshimi Taki has developed charts for the whole sky down to magnitude 8.5, which is very useful for dark-site binocular observing or telescope observing from the city. Check Taki's website for downloads.

• TriAtlas: This amazing project covers the entire sky in three levels of huge detail: magnitude 9, 11 and 13. (For comparison, I have trouble detecting magnitude 13 objects in my 6" telescope at a pretty dark site. So this atlas is very comprehensive.) The TriAtlas website gives the full catalog and download links.

Astrometry.net

After a night of astrophotography, it can sometimes be hard to remember what all those frames show. Especially when you take a very long exposure, you might see objects that you didn't even know were in the field. How do you identify what you're looking at?

You could of course look at a star atlas and compare by hand. But this can be automated, and has been. On Astrometry.net, you can upload image files and the server there will automatically identify what's in the field. It doesn't always succeed — sometimes the source isn't clear enough to resolve where in the sky the field is — but it usually works, and brilliantly.



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Sharing

If you want to share you enjoyment of the night sky with others, there are lots of ways to do it.

Online hangouts

There are lots of ways to virtually socialize with fellow stargazers.

• Cloudy Nights: The forums on this site are generally very friendly and informative. There are also some nice classified ads, and some very active galleries as well.

• Mu-43: This website is for users of micro 4/3 cameras, which allow interchangeable lenses on a small camera body. The forums there are quite friendly, and the astrophotography section has some nice images and discussions.

• Ice in Space: This is an extensive astronomy forum focused on Australia and New Zealand.



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Local astronomy groups

It can be good to hang out with people face-to-face in an astronomy club. Going to a star party where people have all their various scopes set up can be a lot of fun. You can chat about what you're viewing, what kinds of equipment you've got, and just have someone to share your enjoyment of the night sky with. Many groups will organize special events such as Messier Marathons (where participants try to view all 110 Messier objects in a single night), public talks and shows, and weekend-long star parties where you can camp with fellow stargazers.

Joining a group can also be useful in terms of equipment. A lot of groups will have dedicated astronomy setups that you can borrow or have access to if you're a member, and sometimes the observing fields themselves are open only to members. And it's always nice to be able to see through someone's telescope and ask how they like it before you decide on buying one yourself.

There are a lot of astronomy groups out there. Here are some resources.

• Minnesota Astronomical Society: The main astronomy group near me. They have a bunch of different observatories, with a lot of very nice equipment. Mostly, I'm just interested in having a place where I can go and do stargazing far from city lights. They also have regular star parties, public viewing events, talks, SIG meetings, etc. etc.

  Their website has tons of great links for all the neat things they do.

• Astronomical League: There are astronomy groups large and small all over the world. This is a meta-group of astronomy clubs all around the US. They have a yearly convention, publish a pretty nice quarterly magazine and generally help people network.

  See their listing of Minnesota groups, or their main website.

• JPL Night Sky Network: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has a different catalogue of amateur astronomy groups. Their interface is primarily geared towards helping you find clubs nearby, if you live in the US.

• Royal Astronomical Society of Canada: If you live in Canada, the RASC seems to be a pretty good place to look for local astronomy clubs. Or, really, Centres; they appear to have a pretty formalized process and support structure.

• Astronomy Clubs at Sky News: Being a Canadian magazine, Sky News has a very nice listing of local astronomy clubs, not all of which have crown affiliation.

• IAU Directory: The International Astronomical Union has a very nice directory of astronomy groups, both professional and amateur, from across the world. (They don't list everything, though; I know they don't have the Astronomical Society of the Republic of China (Taiwan), for example.)

• Wikipedia's list of astronomical societies: I haven't checked to see if there's anything here that's not duplicated on the IAU website, but this list is at least a good alternate source of club information. And let me know if you find better ones!



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Remote Observing

As light pollution gets worse and worse, and fewer and fewer of us have access to dark skies, a jaundiced view might be that amateur observing will one day no longer exist. Well, although direct in-person access to dark skies may be getting rarer, the internet is making remote observing more and more practical. All it takes is a good scope somewhere under good skies with a good internet connection. Well, and often a good chunk of money, too.

Different services work in different ways, but the principle is the same: You pay some amount of money, from nothing, to sort of reasonable, to 'gosh, that would be nice', and then you get to point a pretty nice telescope at a target of your choice for some amount of time. The services vary in terms of how good their telescopes are; how much they cost; how much time you get per session; how many sessions you get; whether you get exclusive access to your images, or someone else shares them; how much choice you get; what format the images from the telescope are available in (live, downloaded FITS files, or whatever); etc. I haven't actually tried any of these services, but they're all pretty tempting.

• Deep Sky West: An observing service located in New Mexico, US.

• iTelescope.net: An observing service with observatories in California & New Mexico in the US, and in Spain and Australia.

• Skynet University: A web-based series of university-level astronomy courses, either free or cheap, that just happen to include remote telescope time.

• The Virtual Telescope Project: It's a little hard to tell what the business model of this service is; they emphasize that they are "not running a commercial activity", but the only way to actually request time is to make a donation.

• Slooh: A very slick looking website with web events, forums and other things in addition to their remote observing service.

I'm sure that this is only a small portion of all the remote observing services that exist; I'm certainly not aware of all of them. As both light pollution and bandwidth get stronger, remote observing will get more and more tempting, and probably continue to grow.



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Image galleries

Astrophotography is a way of storing photons for a rainy day. Here are some galleries of astro images to check out.

Government galleries

The US government does a lot of science and outreach, which includes publishing and publicizing many, many beautiful astronomical images.

• Hubble Site: The Hubble gallery gives a great array of incredibly gorgeous images from our most famous orbiting telescope. Almost all are public domain, and most are available at very high resolution.

• National Optical Astronomy Observatory: The NOAO provides telescope time at US-funded ground-based telescopes. They have a very nice image gallery.

• Astronomy Picture of the Day: Go check out the APOD archive site. Some of the images are public domain, some are copyright; but almost all are jaw-droppingly beautiful, and it's updated every day.

Image respositories

There are a lot of websites out there that function solely as places for people to store their photos. Some of these specialize in astronomy-related images; others are just useful for astrophotos.

• Astrobin is a relatively new image repository (read: amazing photo gallery) where lots and lots of amateur astrophotographers have put their work. It is pretty astounding, with thousands and thousands of superb images, updated on a constant basis. It also has a very nice search function, so you can (for example) look for all images of M13, or all images taken with a SkyWatcher Star Adventurer mount.

• Flickr and various other public image respositories are also great places to look for astrophotography. Search for 'astrophoto' on Flickr and see what you get.

Personal galleries

A lot of people have their own websites for their images. There are a vast number of these out there. Here are some of my favorites.

• Panther Observatory: The website for Johannes Schedler's astrophotography. He has some really beautiful images of deep sky objects; I love his sense of aesthetics.

• Geckzilla.com: Judy Schmidt uses public domain data (from the Hubble and other sources) to create some really lovely astro images. (Yes, you can do some pretty amazing astroimaging even if you don't own a telescope. And given the free processing tools out there, it's possible to do it without buying anything other than a computer.)

• Weather and Sky Photography: Kerry-Ann Lecky Hepburn has another great gallery of images, both terrestrial and celestial.

• Catching the Light: Jerry Lodriguss' astrophotography site has a very nice gallery, as well as some very nice tutorials on how to do digital astrophotography.

• Mine: Some of my own astrophotos are available in their own section of this page.



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Apps & programs

Naturally enough, there are lots of applications and computer programs that are handy to use in astronomy. Here are some I have experience with.

Linux and open source observing apps

These all run natively on Linux, and most work on OS X and Windows as well.

• XEphem: This program uses a non-standard GUI with lots of annoyances (hard-to-read fonts not least of all). But it gives a lot of good information for many different kinds of objects.

  Check it out on the XEphem website.

• Stellarium: This isn't really an observing program; it's more of a planetarium program. Thus, it's not especially useful for finding out more information about objects, making observing lists, etc., but it's great if you want to get a sense of what the night sky looks like naked eye.

  See the Stellarium website.

• Celestia: This is, again, not really an observing program. Instead, it's a spaceflight simulator that uses a lot of real data to generate very realistic views of our solar system and the universe at large. Not all the data is scientifically accurate, however, and it's not the kind of thing you'd want to use to set up a night's star-gazing schedule.

  The Celestia website, like the program, hasn't been updated in a while.

• KStars: The main KDE astronomy program. This has very nice datasets, with moderate amounts of information about huge numbers of astronomical objects. It scrolls and zooms easily, which is a nice feature; but the magnitude limit is hard to change dynamically, meaning you can have way too many or way too few stars visible in a given field. It has some nice observing list tools, though.

  Check out the KStars website.

• Carte du Ciel: This is my main desktop astronomy app. CdC (also called Skychart, which is what the name means in French) also uses a slightly non-standard GUI that requires a lot of fiddling to make night-vision friendly, but it's pretty good. Scrolling is slow, and getting to the "more information about an object" page takes too much clicking. But when you get there, the information is quite good. It makes it quite easy to set magnitude limits for both stars and deep-sky objects. I also generally like the input scheme, with mouse buttons and keystrokes doing what I want them to. And it's available for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.

  Here is the English Carte du Ciel website.

• Aladin sky atlas: This is a great interface to view some really serious astronomical data, including really good images. Aladin comes in two versions: a web-based app, and a local install. If you open up either and type in the name of an object (e.g., "M31", "NGC7331" or "UGC12127"), or a location (e.g., "22:38:29.37 +35:19:47.3"), you will be presented with the DSS2 color images for that section of the sky. Many other wavelengths and catalogs are available, and clicking on an object will allow you to jump to its SIMBAD page, with tons of interesting information, including magnitudes, redshifts (where available), other designations, and more. The whole package is free, and there are install packages for Windows, Mac and Linux.

  Go explore the Aladin sky atlas website.



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Other free programs

Apps that aren't open source, but don't cost money.

• Google Sky: One of several apps designed to be used on a mobile device while viewing the night sky, this can give you a good general sense of what you're looking at when you're looking at the night sky.

  The interface is simple almost in the extreme. For Messier objects, as an example, it gives only their number and location in the sky, no further information. It doesn't tell you which direction you're pointing, or show many stars, or give any indication what color they are. It also has some kind of smooth scrolling feature that means it's hard to actually point where you want to point.

  Find it in the app store of a mobile device; Google don't provide an easy way to link to webpages for the program.

• SkEye: Probably my pick for best free Android observing app. SkEye has all the features of Google Sky, but gives a lot more information: it shows how big the current FOV is, it indicates star color, it shows a lot more objects, etc.

  Most important for my purposes, it gives a brief but useful description of what each object is. For example, for M51, it says Galaxy SBr: 12.81 Size 11' x 6.9', so you know that M51 is a galaxy with a size of 11 by 6.9 arc seconds. I'm not sure what SBr: 12.81 means — perhaps Surface Brightness? This doesn't seem to be documented anywhere. Still, vastly more information than Google Sky gives.

  I don't really like navigating on either SkEye or Google Sky; they seem very fiddly, changing orientation all too easily or hiccuping when moving in or out. But they're very nice for free apps.

  Check out the main SkEye website, or find it in an app store.

• ScreenDim is a very, very handy app that does just one thing: it dims the screen on my Android tablet to a point where it won't blow out my night vision. This is very important, because I've started using my tablet as my main star chart/observing list tool.

  In actuality, if I'm in a truly dark place and want to preserve my dark adaptation, I use ScreenDim in combination with a red plastic overlay for the screen to make sure.

  To check out ScreenDim, see the publisher's website or just search in a mobile device app store.

• Space Engine is a very pretty program that allows you to fly through most of the observable universe and see planets, stars, clusters, etc. etc. It isn't at all intended as hard science; in fact, once you get beyond the solar system, a large part of it is completely fictional. (The program procedurally generates things outside of the real-world data provided.) But still, it is a lot of fun.

  The Space Engine website has downloads, a manual and lots of pretty screenshots.



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Non-free programs

• Sky Safari: This app, originally for the iPad but also ported to Android, is pretty much indispensable for me now. When I started wanting to observe NGC objects not listed in Turn Left at Orion or Year-Round Messier Marathon, I was pondering what to do next: print off one of the TriAtlases? Buy an old deep-magnitude atlas pre-printed? Look for some kind of app? But all the Linux apps were, well, okay, just not great.

  I got a chance to try Sky Safari on a friend's iPad, and it almost instantly sold me on the app. The ability to pinch-zoom and dynamically set magnitude limits means I can almost perfectly replicate what I'm seeing in the eyepiece, or in the camera finder. Plus, it has tons of interesting information available for every single object, including multi-paragraph writeups for most of the brighter objects. It does very useful observing lists, and allows detailed note-taking for observations, too. You can even set a panoramic image so that the horizon actually looks like your observing location. It has dozens of other features that are either impresssive or just plain useful.

  At least, it has all those features in the full version. I don't really know what features the cheaper versions have, because after using it for a night of observing, I was sold. I bought the full version right away. In fact, not only did it sell me on the app itself, it sold me on the whole concept of tablets. I bought my tablet because of Sky Safari — it is truly a killer app for the platform.

  It is a little difficult to know exactly where to link for Sky Safari. The current publisher, as of this writing, is Simulation Curriculum; but their website doesn't make it easy to link to their Sky Safari pages. Sky Safari has its own website, but it seems out of date and unsupported in some ways.



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Astrophotography apps

As I've started to get into astrophotography, I've learned how much it is truly an art. There are many decisions to make at every stage of the process: Allow these details here at the expense of noise over there? More red or more blue? More or less contrast? What comes out of the camera at the end of a night is by no means ready to display; it takes a lot of care to create something even halfway worth looking at.

Similar to how there are a million kinds of equipment available for doing astronomy, there are certainly dozens if not hundreds of software packages out there to process astrophotos with, specialized or not: Photoshop, Pixinsight, StarTools, AstroPixelProcessor, Siril, etc. etc. They span a variety of dimensions: specificity to astrophotography or not; cost; user-friendliness; bugginess; usefulness; intended applications; etc.

As I'm becoming more acquainted with ways to process my images in Linux, I've started to actually spend money on astrophotography processing programs. But there are still a lot of good, free apps out there. Here are some of the programs I use when coaxing and crafting my astro images.

• Deep Sky Stacker: This is a pretty essential app. It takes a series of images of the same object and automatically aligns and combines them to produce a better, less noisy image. DSS is Windows-native, but runs just fine under WINE. It's also free, and since 2018, open-source.

  See the main Deep Sky Stacker website for downloads, moderately useful tutorials, etc.

• RawTherapee: This program is designed for working with RAW camera files; it's basically an open source alternative to Adboe Lightroom. It doesn't have all the features of its more expensive cousins (RawTherapee is free), and is somewhat slow, but it works quite well for my purposes. It's also Linux-native.

  For my workflow, I sometimes use RawTherapee twice: first, to check the exposures I've taken over the course of the night and make sure they're ready for stacking; then again later on, to process the TIFF that Deep Sky Stacker outputs.

  Check out the main Raw Therapee website. It has tons of different documentation, downloads, screenshots, etc. etc. etc.

• GIMP: Pretty much regardless what I use to do initial processing, a lot of the middle processing (final curves, additional denoising & background removal, etc.) is in GIMP. And the final cropping and PNG output is almost always with GIMP.

  And of course GIMP is also a full-featured image editor. It does almost everything that Photoshop can do at one zero-th the cost. Well worth checking out even if you don't use it for astrophotography.

  The main GIMP webpage has a bunch of resources, including downloads, tutorials and many plugins. See also Georg Hennig's Gimp Astronomy Plugins page for some useful astrophoto add-ons; and find the G'MIC plugins, which include some amazingly useful plugins, such as a wonderful anisotropic noise filter (Repair > Smooth [anisotropic]). (Where exactly to find G'MIC has moved around a bit, so I'm not linking to a specific website; but G'MIC is well worth finding.)

• StarTools: When I first bought a dedicated astrophotography processing program, this was the one I turned to. It doesn't have enough in the way of undo levels for my taste; some of its abilities are pretty simple; and it pretty much only works with TIF files. But for the price, it's hard to beat. It has pretty nice gradient removal, color calibration, geometric correction, denoising, etc. Also, the creator has a great attitude toward price: If you can't afford the program, ask and they'll try to work out a price you can afford.

• Pixinsight: This is a huge, complex, not at all cheap program designed specifically for astrophotography processing. It is extremely capable, with some amazing gradient removal, denoising, annotation, etc. etc. etc. modules; but it is also (in my experience) rather buggy and poorly documented.



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My images

As soon as I realized that my crappy, low-res digital camera could do long-exposure shots, I started doing astrophotography. I've continued to gradually (very gradually) upgrade my equipment and skills. Here are some of my results.

The images start with the galaxies of Northern hemisphere spring, in sort-of ascending order by RA, followed by solar system objects, then terrestrial objects. Click on the thumbnail to get to the full-size image.

NGC2903	NGC2903 is a quite lovely spiral galaxy that's also in Leo. My image mostly just shows the central bar and core.
Better NGC2903	With darker skies and better skills, NGC2903 reveals a lot of nice detail, including a prominent bar and extended arms.
Better NGC2903, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated.
Higher-res NGC2903	Longer focal length, but significantly brighter skies and not much more exposure, gives slightly smaller, but fainter, details.
Higher-res NGC2903, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated.
NGC2903 from a dark site	Finally managed to get a better image of this galaxy from a darker site. Not very satisfied with the color on this, and of course more exposure would help, but this result is fairly decent for now.
NGC2903 from a dark site, annotated	The image above with automated annotations. Not really sure what the difference between NGC2903 and NGC2905 is; presumably they're synonyms for the same object.
M81 group	M81, M82, NGC3077 and NGC2976 all show nicely here.
Better M81 group	Longer exposures and better viewing conditions give better results here.
Even better M81 group	Continued incremental improvements in skill, equipment and exposures for a nicer image.
Even better M81 group, annotated	Not super-necessary, but fun; some of the dim fuzzies in the background are faraway galaxies.
M81 with better equipment	Not a lot of exposure, and very prominent walking/correlated noise, but still nice detail on this spiral galaxy.
M81 with better equipment, automatically annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. I think the quasar SDSS J095636.42+690028.3, appearing down and to the right of the galaxy, actually rises above the noise in this shot. At z = 1.97516, that quasar is about 17 billion lightyears away.
M81 with better equipment, at c. 2.5 hours	This combines something like two hours from light-polluted skies with about a half-hour from dark skies. Dark skies make a big difference, even in small amounts.
M81 with better equipment at c. 2.5 hours, automatically annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. SDSS J095636.42+690028.3 is even clearer here.
M82 with better equipment	A different crop of the above image to show M82. Again, not a lot of exposure, and still very prominent walking/correlated noise, but also still some nice detail on this irregular galaxy. There aren't enough distant objects in this field to make annotation worthwhile.
M82 with better equipment, at c. 2.5 hours	A different crop of the 2.5-hour image to show M82. Again, not a lot of exposure, and still very prominent walking/correlated noise, but also still some nice detail on this irregular galaxy. There aren't enough distant objects in this field to make annotation worthwhile.
M82 with better equipment at c. 2.5 hours, automatically annotated	A different crop of the 2.5-hour image to show M82. Again, not a lot of exposure, and still very prominent walking/correlated noise, but also still some nice detail on this irregular galaxy. There aren't enough distant objects in this field to make annotation worthwhile.
Deeper M81 and M82	About 1.25 hours of exposures from a dark site, albeit with lower-quality equipment than above, reveals a lot more faint detail. I like how you can see the full disc of M81, not just the arms. I couldn't get the red tendrils of M82 to stand out, though, perhaps because I wasn't shooting with a very IR-sensitive camera.
Deeper M81 and M82, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. Note quasar SDSS J095847.88+690532.7; at z = 1.28792, that puts it c. 13.083 Gly away, with light travel time of 8.826 Gyr. That's a very long way.
Deeper M81 and M82, reprocessed	The image above, reprocessed for slightly more natural color and lower noise.
Deeper M81 and M82, reprocessed & annotated	The image above, with annotations. Some good PGC galaxies, and maybe one or two 2MASX galaxies.
Deeper M81 and M82, widefield	One advantage of relatively long exposures from a dark site is that the IFN actually shows up. My wider-field version of this M81/M82 shot starts to reveal a little of the IFN. Note, for example, the backwards L-shape of brighter background along the bottom right of the frame, and the darker patch just above and to its left.
Better M81 and M82, widefield	I finally managed to get a higher-res, fairly decent image of this galaxy group from a dark site. This is about a 30% crop to show the wider field.
Better M81	A 100% crop from the above image. Got some fairly nice detail in the main galaxy, as well as some pretty good color.
Better M81, annotated	The image above, with annotations.
Better M82	Another 100% crop from my better M81-M82 image. Still not enough detail on the gas streamers, but pretty good considering that I wasn't using a filter.
Better M82, annotated	The image above, with annotations. I think the Hoag objects near M82 are related to this paper.
M96 group in Leo	The group of galaxies in Leo that surround M96.
M96 group in Leo, labeled	The image above, run through the automatic labeling at Astrometry.net; identifies M95, M96, M105, NGC3384, NGC3389 and more.
Slightly better M96 group	A slightly better image of the above group, with about the same imaging time, but considerably better equipment. Starting to reveal some of the ring-like central details in some of the galaxies.
Slightly better M96 group, labeled	The above image, with automatic annotations.
Even better M96	A crop from a higher-resolution, longer-exposure image of the M96. This is just the galaxy M96 itself, with a few background galaxies. The central bar of M96 is prominent; there are also hints of the dust lanes across the bar, as well as the outer main arms.
Even better M96, automatically annotated	The above image, with automatic annotation.
Better M96 from a dark site	About the same total exposure as the above shot, but from a much darker site, so the colors are way better and the details come through much better.
Better M96 from a dark site, automatically annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations. Note the string of PGC galaxies off to the upper right.
Even better M95	Another crop from the above higher-resolution, longer-exposure image of the M96 group. This nicely shows the inner ring of star formation in M95, as well as its central bar, and hints of the outer arms.
Even better M95, automatically annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. In case you can't read it clearly, the quasar toward the upper left is SDSS J104335.86+115129.1, at z = 0.793998, or about c. 9.155 Gly away from us.
Better M95 from a dark site	Much the same view as the above M95 shot, but from a dark site, and so revealing much better details with better color.
Better M95 from a dark site, automatically annotated	Much the same view as the above M95 shot, but from a dark site, and so revealing much better details with better color.
Even better M105 group	Yet another crop from my higher-resolution, longer-exposure image of the M96 group. This shows M105, NGC3384, and NGC3389, as well as several background galaxies and quasars. I like the hints of detail in NGC3389.
Even better M105 group, automatically annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. This shows where the quasars and other background galaxies are.
Better M105 group from a dark site	Yet another crop from my dark-site image of the M96 group. Dark skies with about the same total exposure mean better color, a blacker background, and slightly more detail.
Better M105 group from a dark site, automatically annotated	The above image plus automatic annotations.
NGC3521	A lovely oblique-angle spiral galaxy in Leo. Managed to get some good detail in the disc's dust lanes, as well as the larger central bulge halo.
NGC3521, automatically annotated	The image above with automatic annotations. Lots of distant galaxies in this shot.
NGC3521 and 3 Juno	One night in 2023, the galaxy NGC3521 and the asteroid 3 Juno appeared quite near to each other. First, a 35% zoom to show both objects in the same field of view.
Better NGC3521 at 100%	A 100% zoom on that night's NGC3521. About 2.5 hours of exposure from a dark site gives some nice detail in the disc.
Better NGC3521 at 100%, annotated	The image above with automatic annotations. There are lots of known quasars in this field, though my image only actually reveals a handful of them.
3 Juno at 100%	Another 100% zoom, this time to show the asteroid. Or, er, the track it traced that night. Remember, this is across about three hours of movement.
3 Juno, annotated	Some automated and not-automated labels to clarify some of the objects in the frame. A big diversity in distances represented here.
M108 & M97	Finally got around to doing these two Messier objects. They fit very comfortably within the field of view of my main imaging rig, at least at 49% zoom.
M108 & M97, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. A little hard to read at this zoom, but there's too much for me to hand-annotate in this frame.
M108 at full crop	A 100% zoom of M108.
M108 at full crop, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. Got a couple quasars in this frame.
M97 at full crop	Not a lot of detail at this exposure or focal length, but the owl shape is clear, at least.
M97 at full crop, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. Not many background galaxies in this field.
NGC3607, et al.	Not a lot of exposure on these galaxies, but a good start.
NGC3607, et al., annotated	The above image, with annotations.
Leo Triplet	This triad of galaxies in Leo — M65, M66, and NGC3628 — are pretty near Chertan in Leo. My image here manages to get a bit of the arms of M66 and the dust lane in NGC3628. Visually nearby, NGC3593 is opposite a line of three stars from the Leo Triplet. It's hard to find authoritative references on the distance to NGC3593, and thus whether it's actually physically nearby the Leo Triplet or not. Let me know if you find a good source!
Leo Triplet, labeled	Here is the Leo Triplet with the galaxies and a select few other targets labeled.
Better Leo Triplet	Better equipment, longer exposures and slightly improved skill mean better detail on these galaxies. Starting to get some color in M66 (the more distorted angle-on galaxy), as well as some nice definition in the dust lane of NGC3628.
Better Leo Triplet, annotated	The above image annotated, in case you can't keep track of which galaxy is which.
Even better Leo Triplet	Slightly better equipment, so slightly better resolution. This shot shows the entire Triplet at approximately the same scale as the above image.
Even better Leo Triplet, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated.
Even better Leo Triplet: NGC3628	The above Triplet image is shrunk to about 50% scale to match my earlier image. Here, at 100% scale, is a closer crop on NGC3628. You can just start to make out the great warps in the edge dust lane here; there are several branches in the dust lane in this galaxy, and I think I can make out two of them.
Even better Leo Triplet: M65	Another crop from the above 100% image, showing details in M65.
Even better Leo Triplet: M66	Another crop from the above 100% image, showing details in M66. Lots of lovely knots of stars here, as well as some nice hints of color.
Even better Leo Triplet, reprocessed	The image above, reprocessed to lower noise.
Even better Leo Triplet, reprocessed & annotated	The above image, automatically annotated.
Even better Leo Triplet, reprocessed: NGC3628	A 100% crop of my reprocessed NGC3628.
Even better Leo Triplet, reprocessed: M65	A 100% crop of my reprocessed M65.
Even better Leo Triplet, reprocessed: M66	Another crop from the above 100% image, showing details in M66. This reprocessing loses a bit of the color in the galaxy, but preserves most of the detail, I think, as well as reducing the noise by a whole lot.
Even slightly better Leo Triplet at 50%	About the same exposure as above, but much better results due to better conditions. As it happened, asteroid 888 Parysatis was traveling through this field as I took the image, almost equidistant between the three galaxies. This is a 50% crop to show all three galaxies.
Even slightly better Leo Triplet at 50%, annotated	The image above, with annotations.
Even slightly better NGC3628	A 100% crop of this galaxy from the above shot. Some of the branching dust lanes start to show a bit better here.
Even slightly better NGC3628, annotated	The image above, annotated. A few background galaxies show up in this shot.
Even slightly better M65	A 100% crop of this galaxy from the above shot, also including 888 Parysatis. M65 looks a lot like a miniature M31 to me.
Even slightly better M65, annotated	The image above, with annotations.
Even slightly better M66	A 100% crop to show M66, including 888 Parysatis. Got suprisingly good detail in the arms of M66.
Even slightly better M66, annotated	The image above, with annotations.
A quick but good Leo Triplet	A very quick series on the Triplet — only about twelve minutes! But this was with a cooled camera, from a dark site, so the quality is surprisingly good, considering. This is a 47% crop to show all three galaxies.
M109	A nifty barred spiral galaxy. The glow in the lower right is not from light pollution, but from the star Phecda (aka Phad, aka Gamma Ursae Majoris, aka many other things).
M109, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. Managed to get a little definition on some PGC galaxies.
Deeper M109	Nearly the same field as above, and the same equipment, but more total imaging time, reveals more detail in the main galaxy and elsewhere.
Deeper M109, annotated	The above image, plus automatic annotations. Note the many quasars in this image, and many, many PGC galaxies.
Slightly better M109	A few hours on M109 with better equipment, but from light-polluted skies. Slightly more resolution, and certainly better polar alignment.
Slightly better M109, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
M109 at c. 10 hours	Adding a lot more time on this galaxy gives much better detail and lower noise.
M109 at c. 10 hours, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
Higher-resolution M109 from a dark site	About 2.5 hours of exposure here, but from a dark site, so noise levels were low; but I also think I had some focus issues, so still not fully satisfactory.
Higher-resolution M109 from a dark site, annotated	The image above, with annotations.
NGC3953	A different crop from the above M109 shot: an unexpected bonus galaxy, the pretty nice spiral NGC3953.
NGC3953, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
Slightly better NGC3953	Another, different crop from my slightly better M109 shot.
Slightly better NGC3953, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
NGC3953 at c. 10 hours	Again, a crop from my c. 10 hour exposure of M109 to show NGC3953.
NGC3953 at c. 10 hours, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
Higher-resolution NGC3953 from a dark site	A crop from my 2.5-hour-or-so, dark site M109 and NGC3953 image; as with the M109 crop, low noise levels, but also some focus issues.
Higher-resolution NGC3953 from a dark site, annotated	The image above with automatic annotations.
Quasars near M109	Another crop from my wider M109 shot. This field contains five objects on the Half-Million Quasar list, including one that is, as of this shot, the furthest object I've ever imaged: SDSS J120613.08+523138.5. At z = 2.763875, that quasar is about 20.344 billion lightyears away from us, and that light had been traveling for 11.344 billion years before landing on my camera's sensor. Pretty neat.
Quasars near M109, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. In addition to SDSS J120613.08+523138.5, the field contains HMQ objects SDSS J120641.98+521901.4, at z = 0.08259 and c. 1.139 Gly; SDSS J120510.91+524317.3, at z = 0.09250 and c. 1.273 Gly; SDSS J120406.67+525000.1, at z = 1.902755, c. 16.717 Gly co-moving distance, and a light travel time of 10.241 Gyr; and SBS 1201+524, at z = 0.17734 and c. 2.393 Gly.
6 Comae Berenices and Friends	The star 6 Comae Berenices appears very close to a large swath of the Virgo Cluster, a huge grouping of galaxies about 60 million light years away. We are actually in the far outer reaches of the Virgo Cluster. The full image shows lots and lots of galaxies; my maximum resolution image has probably hundreds.
6 Comae Berenices and Friends, annotated	The same image as above, run through Astrometry.net to identify what all those little fuzzballs are.
6 Comae Berenices et al, updated	Almost the same field as above, with the advantage of better equipment, longer exposures and slightly improved skill. Due to higher resolution/magnification, the image is rather bigger than last time.
6 Comae Berenices et al, updated & annotated	Almost the same field as above, with the advantage of better equipment, longer exposures and slightly improved skill. Due to higher resolution/magnification, the image is rather bigger than last time.
M98	Located within the field above, M98 is a nearly edge-on galaxy in the Virgo Cluster. I took this with a higher focal length than the above image, though probably without enough exposure time. Deeper images than mine give the impression that the spiral arms are actual helical (out of a single plane); I haven't been able to find anything clarifying whether they are or not, but I assume it's just an illusion.
M98, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. The object LBQS 1210+1507, barely detectable toward the bottom of the frame, is a quasar at z (redshift) 1.619024, which makes it slightly over 15 billion lightyears away, and meaning the photons had been traveling for about 9.6 billion years before landing on my camera's sensor that night.
M99	A crop from the same wider-field image as my M98 image above. M99 has a very long, distorted arm, due to a gravitational encounter (though we are unsure which object the encounter would've been with).
M99, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. The annotations reveal why I chose the crop I did: the nice string of background galaxies 'above' M99.
About two hours on M99	A little over two hours on M99, from a light-polluted place, but with a cooled camera and a bit more processing experience, so better quality. Still lots of room for improvement, though.
About two hours on M99, annotated	The image above, with annotations.
NGC4302 and NGC4298	Another crop from my two-hour M99/M100 exposure. These two galaxies make a pretty contrast.
NGC4302 and NGC4298, annotated	The image above, with annotations.
Quasars near M99 and M100	Another crop from my two-hour M99/M100 exposure. Barely detectable in this field is a quasar at redshift z = 3.99, which was for a short time the furthest object I had ever imaged.
Quasars near M99 and M100, annotated	The image above, with annotations. The quasars are definitely of the 'barely detectable' variety.
Quasars near 6 Comae Berenices	They're not much to look at, but the field near 6 Comae Berenices includes several quasars that are very, very far away. Toward the bottom of the frame, SDSS J121336.08+152013.0 is at z (redshift) 0.847377, meaning it's about 9.6 billion lightyears away, and that the light travel time was a little over 7 billion years (since well before the birth of our solar system). Toward the upper right of the frame is LBQS 1212+1551, which is even further away: at z = 1.954827, it is just slightly less than 17 billion lightyears away, and the light travel time is over 10 billion years, or about 80% of the age of the universe. As of this image, LBQS 1212+1551 was about the furthest verified object I'd photographed.
Quasars near 6 Comae Berenices, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated, to make actually identifying the quasars possible.
M106	A really nice angle-on spiral. I hadn't realized how much nifty detail there is in this field, including lots of gorgeous galaxies. I managed to get some nice detail in the knots of M106 itself, as well as lots of background galaxies, and NGC4217, at the bottom of the frame, has a very prominent dust lane down the middle. It pays to go to a dark site once in a while.
M106, annotated	The above image, labeled. The quasar SDSS J121537.41+471353.3, which I think rises above the level of the noise here, at the lower right, is at z = 0.497, putting it about 6 billion lightyears away, with a light travel time of about 5 billion years.
M106, reprocessed	The same image, reprocessed with a couple more years experience under my belt. Slightly better noise levels and better detail.
M106, reprocessed & annotated	The above image, with more dense annotations. It's remarkable how many galaxies there are in this field. Also, you can see why I chose a slightly different crop this time: to fit two quasars that appear pretty close to M106.
M106 at higher resolution	More resolution, better alignment, etc. means a bit more detail in this version.
M106 at higher resolution, annotated	The above image, with annotations.
NGC4392 group(s)	A different crop from my wider-field M106 image. This field contains a vast number of galaxies.
NGC4392 group(s), annotated	The field above, automatically annotated. Now you see why I call this image "group(s)" rather than "group": There are at least two distinct galaxy clusters in this image. Also, I spot-checked the redshift of many of the galaxies in this shot. NGC4392 appears to be the central galaxy in one group, that ranges from about 300 to 340 million lightyears away; but there are many other galaxies 'behind' them that are at least double that distance away. And the galaxies in the lower right appear to center on yet a different distance from us. So this image probably shows at least three different galaxy clusters.
M61	A nifty face-on spiral in the southwest corner of the Virgo cluster. This is just over 3 hours of subs, with a lot of careful processing, so I managed to get some pretty nice details. I don't know why I didn't shoot this one sooner; it's a very nifty spiral, reminding me a lot of M83.
M61, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. M61 is about 52 million lightyears away; the background galaxy PGC1266560, to the upper right, is about 1.7 billion lightyears away.
M61, reprocessed	A slightly better processing result of the same data.
M61, reprocessed & annotated	The better-processed version with automatic annotations.
NGC4273 group	A different crop of my M61 shot; this shows several other galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, centered on NGC4273. Some nifty differences in shape and color here, and I love the galaxy that appears right next to a foreground star at mid-left.
NGC4273 group, annotated	The above shot, automatically annotated. It's very neat how many of those spots of light are distant galaxies.
NGC4273 group, reprocessed	The same shot as above, with better processing.
NGC4273 group, reprocessed & annotated	The above reprocessed shot with automatic annotations.
Better M61	About three hours of exposure on this galaxy, from a dark site with a longer focal length.
Better M61, annotated	The image above, with annotations.
Better NGC4273	Another crop from my improved M61 image, of this interesting galaxy group.
Better NGC4273 group, annotated	The image above, plus annotations. Lots of lovely galaxies in this field.
NGC4261 group	Another crop from my improved M61 image, of another interesting galaxy group.
NGC4261 group, annotated	The NGC4261 group with annotations.
NGC4430, et al.	Yet another crop from my improved M61 image, of more interesting galaxies. This crop, from near the edge of the field, starts to show how much distortion my optics had.
NGC4430, et al., annotated	The field above, automatically annotated.
M40	Perhaps the oddest of the Messier Objects: Just a double star, probably not even a true binary. The field is just full of galaxies, though; I may revisit it later.
M40, annotated	M40 itself isn't really worth annotating, but fun to show how many galaxies are in this field.
M100	A nice face-on spiral in the Virgo Cluster, not too far in the sky from M98 and M99.
M100, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. Lots of nearby galaxies in this region.
About two hours on M100	A little over two hours on M100, from a light-polluted place, but with a cooled camera and a bit more processing experience, so better quality. Still lots of room for improvement, though.
About two hours on M100, annotated	That image, with annotations.
Markarian's Chain	Appearing very nearby 6 Comae Berenices, Markarian's Chain is a huge swath of galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, about 60 million light years away.
Markarian's Chain, labeled	The same image as above, with most of the visible galaxies labeled.
Markarian's Chain, slightly wider field	My full mosaic of Markarian's Chain is quite huge, including dozens of galaxies — only a tiny fraction of the total located in this expanse, of course. This is a slightly wider crop that shows two further landmarks in the area: M87, and IC 3476. M87 is significant because, while not the largest galaxy in the Virgo Cluster, it is at the center of the Cluster. And therefore, in an indirect sense, M87 is the center around which we are orbiting. IC 3476 is personally significant, because it's one of the first IC galaxies that I have gotten an image of. There are several more in the wider field.
Markarian's Chain, slightly wider & labeled	The above wider crop, labeled.
Markarian's Chain at c. 5 hours	A few years later, with better equipment and slightly better skills, roughly the same field. The fuller field includes M88, but I couldn't crop it in at this aspect ratio.
Markarian's Chain at c. 5 hours, labeled	The wider area, hand-labeled.
The Tail of Markarian's Chain	A higher-res view of the eastern end of Markarian's chain, including the galaxies NGC4473, 4477, and 4479. Lots of background galaxies, too.
Tail of Markarian's Chain, annotated	A higher-res view of the eastern end of Markarian's chain, including the galaxies NGC4473, 4477, and 4479. Lots of background galaxies, too.
Slightly better M86 region	Revisited Markarian's Chain a few years later, with better equipment. Not a lot of exposure — this was more of an imaging test after a night of technical experiments, than a serious attempt at really redoing the Chain — but a promising start on this region.
Slightly better M86 region, annotated	The image above, with annotations.
M87 region	The other massive elliptical near Markarian's Chain. The famous black hole isn't even vaguely visible at this resolution, of course, but I think the tidal jet might be; compare with the Spitzer image of the area.
M87 region, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations. Note the placement of PGC41342 and PGC139919 when checking the location of the tidal jet.
M86 et al. at c. 5 hours and 79% crop	c. 5 hours' exposure on M84, M86 and nearby galaxies, at about 79% crop to show the wider region. Managed to get some nice detail in the edge-on spiral galaxies, as well as showing a little of just how huge M86 is.
M86 et al. at c. 5 hours and 79% crop, annotated	The above image, with automated annotations.
NGC4438, et al. at c. 5 hours	Another crop of my c. 5-hour shot, this time to show the so-called 'Eyes' near the center of Markarian's Chain. Not a lot of detail, but decent enough considering the exposure length and light-polluted site.
NGC4438, et al. at c. 5 hours, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations.
M87 et al. at c. 5 hours	Another crop of my c. 5-hour shot to show M87. Like M86 above, longer exposure starts to show how huge M87 is. Again fairly certain I'm seeing the tidal jet at about 11 o'clock from the core.
M87 et al. at c. 5 hours, annotated	The above image, with annotations. PGC41327 is kind of surprising; it totally looks like a star in my shot, but nope, it's a galaxy.
M88	A quite pretty spiral galaxy, M88 is part of the Virgo Cluster; if you trace the arc of Markarian's Chain through NGC4477 and continue in the same direction, you eventually come to M88.
M88, annotated	The above image, annotated. This image has only about two hours of exposures, so while some of the background galaxies are definitely there, I didn't get a lot of detail; and the quasar 2E 1228+1437 doesn't rise above the background noise, so far as I can see.
M88 at c. 5 hours	A considerably better version of this galaxy; the field is cropped to show some other nearby galaxies.
M88 at c. 5 hours, annotated	The above image, with annotations. In better photos than mine, IC3476 looks almost like a polar ring, at least to me.
M91	Quite near M88 in the sky, and also a Virgo Cluster member, M91 is a very nice face-on barred spiral. Definitely a target to get some more imaging time on.
M91, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. Again, just got some hints of background galaxies here.
M91 at c. 5 hours	Finally added more time on this target. A bit more detail, a bit less noise, and a bit of the lovely blue/red contrast.
M91 at c. 5 hours, annotated	The above image, annotated.
M90 to NGC4568	A wide-field zoom out of the region from M90 to NGC4568.
M90 to NGC4568, labeled	That image, hand-labeled.
M89, et al.	A crop of M89 and thereabouts.
M89, et al., annotated	That image, annotated.
NGC4568 & NGC4567	Two nifty conjoined galaxies.
NGC4568 & NGC4567, annotated.	That image, with automatic annotations.
M58	Another crop from the wider-field M90 to NGC4568 image. A nifty spiral with tightly-wrapped arms.
M58, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
M90	Another crop from the wider-field M90 to NGC4568 image. The detail is pretty good, considering this is only about two hours of subs; also, the reddish color above the disc is real.
M90, annotated	That image, automatically annotated.
M90 at c. 5 hours	Another crop from my c. 5-hour image. Considerably better image quality than the two-hour version above.
M90 at c. 5 hours, annotated	The above image, annotated.
M87 from a dark site	In late 2024, I got to do about 3.5 hours of exposure on the area from M91 to M87 with a cooled camera from a dark site. All the galaxies in this image are easily my best-yet versions of them, although the stars are almost all bad. (Some kind of tilt or pinched optics problem that I haven't been able to figure out yet.) First up from that image, a 100% crop of M87.
M87 from a dark site, annotated	The image above, annotated. Lots of galaxies beyond M87 in this frame.
M88 from a dark site	Another crop from that 3.5-hour image from a dark site. Again, easily my best-yet image of this galaxy, though the stars leave a lot to be desired.
M88 from a dark site, annotated	The image above, with annotations.
M89 from a dark site	Another crop from that 3.5-hour image from a dark site. The stars are maybe even worse here?
M89 from a dark site, annotated	The image above, annotated.
M90 from a dark site	Another crop from that 3.5-hour image from a dark site. Still poor stars, but some nice detail in the main galaxy.
M90 from a dark site, annotated	With annotations, it's clear why I chose that crop: To keep the long string of galaxies at the right side of the field.
M91 from a dark site	Another crop from that 3.5-hour image from a dark site. Managed to reveal the full disc of the galaxy.
M91 from a dark site, annotated	Not quite so many distant galaxies in this field, but still worth annotating.
The Vindemiatrix Radar Dish and Tonfa	Just to the west of Vindemiatrix, there is a trapezoid of stars (Rho Virginis, 33 Virginis, d2 Virginis and d1 Virginis) that I think of as the 'Great Radar Dish'. The open side of the radar dish points at a smaller arrangement of four stars in a lopsided T-shape that I think of as the 'Tonfa', for the shape's resemblance to the martial arts weapon. The Tonfa makes a great pointer for a bunch of outer Virgo Cluster galaxies, including M49. This wide-field image shows Vindemiatrix, the Radar Dish, and the Tonfa, as well as a lot of galaxies.
The Vindemiatrix Radar Dish and Tonfa, labeled	That field, with some prominent objects labeled.
Closer view of the Tonfa	A bit of a zoom in on the Tonfa region, including M49 and quite a few other galaxies.
M49, etc., annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
Slightly better M49, etc.	This image shows the same 'Tonfa' asterism I mentioned above, but with better equipment and longer exposures (though not actually that much — only about 53 minutes, all told). This is zoomed out from the original resolution to show the whole tonfa. Lots and lots of galaxies are visible in this image, which is kind of impressive considering the low total exposure.
Slightly better M49, etc., annotated	This above image with automatic image annotation.
M49	The above "Tonfa" image is, at native resolution, quite big. This is a crop to show just M49 at higher resolution.
NGC4526	Again from the wider-field tonfa image, the edge-on lenticular galaxy NGC4526 (aka NGC4560).
NGC4526, automatically annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. You can see why I chose this framing: the line of PGC galaxies stretching along the left side of the frame.
NGC4535	Another crop from my wider-field tonfa image. NGC4535 is a lovely face-on spiral, part (like NGC4526 and M49) of the Virgo Cluster. Again, I managed to get pretty nice detail, despite the low total exposure time (c. 53 minutes).
NGC4535, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. Note the quasar at mid-left: LBQS 1231+0813, at z=1.19 or so, or about 12.4 billion light years away/8.5 billion light year travel time.
M49, etc. at c. 4 hours	A significantly better image of the "Tonfa" area, zoomed out to show the whole field. Had some serious star trailing in this, and the color came out almost too blue, but the depth is nice.
M49, etc. at c. 4 hours, labeled	The image above, hand-labeled.
Environs of M49 at c. 4 hours	A 100% crop of M49, from the above image. Nice, low noise, but at full crop, it's obvious how very non-spherical the stars turned out.
Environs of M49 at c. 4 hours, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
NGC4526 at c. 4 hours	Got some neat detail in the core of this galaxy, in spite of the poor alignment.
NGC4526 at c. 4 hours, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
NGC4535 at c. 4 hours	This is probably the best feature from the wider-field 4-hour 'Tonfa' image. Would've been even nicer with better alignment, of course.
NGC4535 at c. 4 hours, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
NGC4469 at c. 4 hours	Yet another 100% crop from my wider-field 'Tonfa' image. This galaxy shows a remarkable 'X' shape in its core. Would be even clearer with better alignment, of course.
NGC4469 at c. 4 hours, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. The group of galaxies toward mid-top seems to be a cluster (e.g., PGC94230 is considered a "galaxy in a cluster"), but I haven't been able to find a name for the cluster as such.
M49 from a dark site	Another image of the Tonfa area, and with only a bit over two hours' exposure; but with a cooled camera, and from a dark sky site, so considerably better quality.
M49 from a dark site, annotated	That image, automatically annotated.
NGC4469 from a dark site	Another crop from that dark-sky, two-hour, cooled-camera exposure of the Tonfa region. Some nice definition on the galaxies in this field, including what appear to be dust lanes in NGC4469. Please don't notice how oblong the stars are.
NGC4469 from a dark site, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations.
NGC4488 from a dark site	Another crop from that dark-sky, two-hour, cooled-camera exposure of the Tonfa region. I hadn't previously noticed what a nifty shape NGC4488 has — like a parallelogram.
NGC4488 from a dark site, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations.
NGC4526 from a dark site	Another crop from that dark-sky, two-hour, cooled-camera exposure of the Tonfa region. Those horns on the stars mean there's something funky going on with my main telescope's optics, but I haven't had a chance to diagnose the issue yet.
NGC4526 from a dark site, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations.
NGC4535 from a dark site	Another crop from that dark-sky, two-hour, cooled-camera exposure of the Tonfa region. NGC4535 is definitely the jewel of the region, for me.
NGC4535 from a dark site, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations.
NGC4565 and Coma Berenices	The lovely edge-on galaxy NGC4565 with the nearby Coma Berenices cluster. Not great seeing, and also not a lot of imaging time, so the galaxy has very little detail; but it's plainly edge-on, and there are hints of the dust lanes along the edge. NGC4494 is also visible.
NGC4565 and Coma Berenices	The lovely edge-on galaxy NGC4565 with the nearby Coma Berenices cluster. Not great seeing, and also not a lot of imaging time, so the galaxy has very little detail; but it's plainly edge-on, and there are hints of the dust lanes along the edge. NGC4494 is also visible.
Better NGC4565	Longer exposures and better viewing conditions give better detail. The fuzzball at right-mid frame is NGC4494.
Even better NGC4565	About 3 hours of subs, with a better imaging rig (albeit from light-polluted skies). Some nice resolution on the main galaxy, including some details in the dust lane; also, some hints of background galaxies (and a fair amount of walking noise).
Even better NGC4565, annotated	The image above, automatically annotated. Many background galaxies — faint, but definitely there. Also, two quasars, one at about z=1.46, barely but probably there.
NGC4565 at about 4 hours	Up to about 4 hours of total exposure here; managing to retain some of the nice warped detail in the dust lanes near the central bulge. A slightly different crop than the image above, to show the nearby galaxy NGC4562 (aka 4565A).
NGC4565 at about 4 hours, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
NGC4565 from dark skies	Only a little over an hour of exposure here, but much higher quality due to being from a much darker site.
NGC4565 from dark skies, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
Jupiter, Leo and Coma Berenices	A wide-field view of Jupiter, Leo and Coma Berenices. Not great seeing, but decent enough polar alignment. The fuzzy cluster in the upper left is Coma Berenices; the actual open cluster is called Melotte 111.
Leo, Coma Berenices, et al.	A slightly better wide-field view of Leo, Vindemiatrix and points in between. This was a very cloudy night, so seeing isn't great; and there's only about 20 minutes of total exposures. Still, this is a fun field.
Leo, Coma Berenices, et al., labeled	The above imaged, hand-labeled. (Some rather severe lens distortion, from using such a wide focal length, made it hard to annotate this automatically.) Lots of things visible here, including a couple of my home-brewed asterisms, the Radar Dish and the Tonfa, that I use to star-hop to the Virgo Cluster.
M68	A moderate-size globular cluster located pretty far from the galactic center (which is unusual for globular clusters). The bluish-appearing star to the upper right is HD 109799, aka ADS 8612, which Messier mentioned in his description of M68. ADS 8612 is a double star, and should be more yellow-white than blue; I've been unable to get the color quite right. And I suspect that may be true of many of my images here; something to work more on in the future.
M104	An attempt at getting the so-called Sombrero Galaxy from the city. No color, and only the barest hints of the dust lanes, but still it shows the disc shape well.
Better M104	A combined total of about 2 hours of exposures reveals a lot more of the disc, and makes the dust lane stand out quite prominently. Not enough resolution to reveal many details in, well, any part of the galaxy, but pretty good for now.
Better M104, annotated	The above image with automated annotations. Managed to get ghostly hints of a few background galaxies.
M104 with better equipment	Only about 2 hours of exposures, gathered between rain and clouds, although at higher resolution than the images above.
M104 with better equipment, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. Not many of the background galaxies show up with so little exposure.
M104 at about 3 hours	For much of the spring of 2020, I tried to add time on M104, but the weather wasn't cooperative. This image represents about 3 hours of exposures.
M104 at about 3 hours, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. There are a lot of background galaxies in this field, but it'll take considerably more exposure to really reveal them.
Higher-quality M104	Only about 1 hour of exposure, but via a cooled camera at a dark site, so much higher quality. Some focus issues, though; the stars should be smaller, and there should be at least a little detail in the dust lane.
Higher-quality M104, annotated	The above image with automatic annotations.
Whale and Hockey Stick	Only about an hour of exposures, but still some nice detail on these two galaxies (NGC4631, the Whale; and NGC4656, the Hockey Stick).
Whale and Hockey Stick, annotated	The above image, with annotations.
NGC4725	Only about an hour of exposure, and from light-polluted skies to boot; but a good start on this lovely object.
NGC4725, annotated	The above field with automatic annotations. Another good reason to add time on this field: The area is packed with lots of dim galaxies.
NGC4725 at two hours	About two hours of total exposure on this target. Starting to show a little of NGC4725's remarkable single-arm spiral pattern.
NGC4725 at two hours, annotated	The above field with automatic annotations. Another good reason to add time on this field: The area is packed with lots of dim galaxies.
M94	A difficult target, especially with the equipment I used. Probably need to use a longer focal length to resolve much detail on this galaxy. Still, the blue ring of heavy star formation is clear.
M94, annotated	The above target, with automatic annotations.
M64 at c. 4 hours	Finally decided to try this target, and glad I did. Got some nice detail on the core, in spite of poor alignment.
M64 at c. 4 hours, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
A hint of the Coma Cluster	Not even 20 minutes of exposure, some star trailing, and from light-polluted skies to boot; but still, a nice start on this massive galaxy cluster.
A hint of the Coma Cluster, annotated	The image above with automatic annotations. So many galaxies in this field!
Another hint of the Coma Cluster	Not even 12 minutes of exposure this time — a night plagued with problems, both terrestrial and heavenly. But higher resolution and a better camera, so possibly about the same overall quality.
Another hint of the Coma Cluster, annotated	The above image with automatic annotations. Kind of silly to annotate, but why not.
M53	Finally got around to imaging this globular cluster. Not a lot of exposure, nor much focal length, but a good start.
M53, annotated	Not much visible here worth annotating, but just in case.
NGC5033	A very nice galaxy in Canes Venatici. My image also shows NGC5005, a galaxy that is actually physically paired with NGC5033, not just apparently so. NGC5033's arms look to me like they're distorted, perhaps due to an encounter with NGC5005, but I haven't found any research confirming this.
NGC5033, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. Lots of nice PGC galaxies in there in addition to NGC5033 and NGC5005.
M63	Another lovely galaxy in Canes Venatici. Not a lot of detail here, but considering the modest equipment and exposure length (about 1 hour of subs), this is still a halfway decent result.
M63, annotated	The above image, automatcally annotated. Lots of background galaxies in there.
M63 from light-polluted skies	About five hours of exposures, with considerably better equipment than the above images, but with a lot more light pollution.
M63 from light-polluted skies, annotated	Despite the short exposure and light pollution, I managed to image a few faint, distant galaxies.
Slightly better M63	Only about 90 minutes of exposure, but with a cooled camera and fairly decent guiding, so better detail while keeping the noise level relatively low.
Slightly better M63, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
c. 3 hours on M63 from a dark site	Finally got a better image of M63, with about 200 minutes' exposure and a cooled camera.
c. 3 hours on M63 from a dark site, annotated	No quasars visible in this frame, though it does make me want to add time on this field and get a clearer image of PGC46093.
UMa and UMi widefield	A wide-field shot of Big and Little Dippers, in Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Kind of fun to try to recognize the constellations in this unannotated shot. The full-size version shows a lot of objects (M51, M101, etc.), but they don't really show up at this scale.
UMa and UMi widefield, annotated	The above shot, with annotations. Here, I've only drawn the constellation lines. I've also only drawn the Big Dipper, not the whole of UMa, because the full constellation extends far beyond the edges of the frame.
M51	The famous Whirlpool Galaxy in Ursa Major, this has a nice satellite galaxy. My image starts to reveal some of the color differences between the two objects.
Better M51	More imaging time plus a higher magnification of M51, resulting in slightly better details.
Even better M51	Finally starting to get some of the dust lanes, and a bit more color.
Even better M51, annotated	The main galaxies, a couple NGC galaxies, and some background, fainter galaxies, labeled.
Even more improved M51	Better equipment and higher magnification means much longer exposures are required, but also reveals more detail.
Even more improved M51, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated (almost not worth it, but why not).
M51 at c. 3.5 hours	About 3.5 hours' exposure on a nice, clear night. As of this shot, probably my best M51.
M51 at c. 3.5 hours, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations. Kind of unnecessary, but just in case.
M51 at c. 3.5 hours, reprocessed	The image above, reprocessed to bring out a bit more color and detail while lowering noise.
M51 at c. 3.5 hours, reprocessed & annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations. Kind of unnecessary, but just in case.
Slightly better M51	Only about an hour of exposure, but with a cooled camera from a dark site, so this reveals a bit of the long tidal tail off NGC5195. Had some focus issues, though, so some of the detail isn't as tight as it could be.
Slightly better M51, annotated	Not much else in the field, but why not.
M83	Far to the south of M51, but at a very similar right ascension, M83 is often called the 'Southern Pinwheel'. Even at my current latitude, it barely gets above the horizon, so this image took a lot of heavy-duty processing to get anything usable. Still, I managed to get some nice color and detail in the dust lanes.
M83, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated.
Higher-res, lower-exposure M83	On a night filled with problems (poor weather, focus, and mount issues, among others), I got less than 20 minutes of exposure on M83. But this was with a longer focal length and a cooled camera, so in some ways the quality is actually better. Hopefully I'll get to add better time on this target someday.
Higher-res, lower-exposure M83, annotated	Almost not worth annotating, but I suppose it can't hurt.
Shapley Supercluster north	A partial crop of the same field that my M83 above comes from. The Shapley Supercluster is a huge concentration of galaxies about 650 million lightyears away. We and everything near us in the universe are moving toward the Shapley Supercluster. As with my M83 shot, this doesn't reveal much of the background galaxies; a lot of what might appear to faint fuzzy galaxies is actually just noise. Some of the brighter galaxies are visible, however.
Shapley Supercluster north, labeled	The above image, labeled. The galaxies are dense enough that it's pretty hard to tell what's what in places, but you can at least use the NGC galaxies are guideposts.
Slightly better M83	Another attempt on this galaxy. This time, I got a chance to image it from much darker skies; but I also had some severe tracking issues, I think due to wind. So please don't notice how terrible the stars or focus are here.
Slightly better M83, annotated	Kinda not really worth annotating, but why not. The wider-field image this is cropped from also got a bunch of the Shapley cluster, but the optical defects make the image not worth posting.
M3	A pretty nice globular cluster in Canes Venatici. Perhaps odd that I only got around to shooting it now.
Slightly deeper M3	Added a tiny more time from the previous image, but still not much — less than 10 minutes total exposures. I should add more time here sometime.
Ever so slightly deeper M3	Again, a small incremental improvement; only up to about 12.5 minutes here. Someday, I'll do a more serious image of this globular cluster!
And yet even slightly deeper M3	A whole 15 minutes this time! But with a cooled camera and better focus and guiding, so yet another slight incremental improvement.
M101	The other lovely big spiral galaxy in Ursa Major, and one often called the 'Northern Pinwheel'. Not a lot of detail, and some slight star trailing, but a fairly nice result nonetheless. M101, M83 and several other galaxies all share the moniker 'the Pinwheel Galaxy', actually — it's a popular nickname. The galaxy NGC5474 is toward the bottom left.
M101 labeled	The above image, with M101 and NGC5474 labeled.
Better M101	Finally, a better M101; this is the result of darker skies, better polar alignment, and a pretty long series of exposures (about 1.75 hours total). Managed to get a bunch of detail in the galaxy itself, as well as bunches of background galaxies.
Better M101, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. NGC5477 is very clear, as are a bunch of PGC galaxies.
Quasars from that M101 shot	Doing longer exposures from darker skies has many advantages, one of which is that very distant quasars actually show pretty clearly. The wider field of my above M101 shot includes one section with nine quasars, all pretty easily visible. Many of these are amazingly distant; one, SBS 1401+566, is as of this shot the further object I've imaged. At z = 2.58, its comoving distance is about 19.675 billion light-years, and those photons had been traveling for about 11.162 billion years, or since the universe was only about 2.6 billion years old (more than 80% of the history of the universe away).
Slightly better M101	About two hours of exposure on M101 with a longer focal length and a cooled camera, so slightly more detail than the image above.
Slightly better M101, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations.
A quasar at redshift 4.3 near M101	My two-hour cooled image of M101 barely shows a quasar that is at redshift z = 4.3 or so, a new distance record for quasars I've imaged.
A quasar at redshift 4.3 near M101, annotated	At z = 4.3 or so, the quasar has a comoving distance of about 24.5 billion lightyears, for a light travel time of about 12.3 billion years — about 89% of the age of the universe.
NGC5866	Hardly any exposure at all here, and with poor conditions and relatively short focal length to boot, so couldn't bring out much detail or background. Still, a decent first image of this target (which is also M102, if you believe the standard theory).
NGC5866, annotated	The field above, automatically annotated. Some very faint hints of distant galaxies here — surprising, considering the short exposure.
NGC5905 & NGC5908	Another crop from my wider-field NGC5866 field above — this time, the galaxies NGC5905 & NGC5908. NGC5905, in particular, is a really nice face-on spiral; I should add a lot more exposure on this field sometime.
NGC5905 & NGC5908, annotated	The image above, annotated.
NGC5907	Yet another crop from my wider-field NGC5866 field above — a remarkably thin edge-on spiral.
NGC5907, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated.
Draco Triplet	About 4.5 hours of exposure here; not a lot of detail, considering.
Draco Triplet, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
Draco Triplet from darker skies	Only about half the exposure as the above shot, but from a much darker site, so, much better results.
Draco Triplet from darker skies, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
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Centaurus A	A nifty galaxy with a very prominent dust lane. (Is it a lenticular or an elliptical? This is apparently a matter of debate.) Barely any exposure on this, and I think my focus was off; certainly a target to image at higher quality sometime.
Centaurus A, annotated	Almost not worth annotating, except to show how much further the galaxy extends than this image shows.
Omega Centauri	The Milky Way's largest globular cluster; it's quite far into the southern sky, so I hadn't seen this before recently. In this image, the cluster only rose slightly above the southern horizon, so there's still a lot of light pollution in there. But still: A huge globular cluster, very obviously oblong. It's easy to see why a current theory is that it's the core of a galaxy the Milky Way absorbed long ago.
Slightly better Omega Centauri	A slightly longer series of exposures (c. 10 minutes total) reveal a bit more of the outer stars, and reduce the noise a bit more. It may be hard to get more than this; at the place I do most of my astrophotography now, there is a very brief window where Omega Centauri is both visible and sufficiently above the light pollution. Still, a fairly nice result from a brief set of total subs. It is quite fun to compare my M13 shots and my Omega Centauri shots side-by-side; M13 is slightly further away (c. 22,000 lightyears vs. c. 16,000 lightyears) than Omega Centauri, but even adjusted for distance, Omega Centauri is huge.
Another attempt at Omega Centauri	On a night full of minor disasters, I tried to salvage the session by doing a quick series on Omega Centauri. Ended up with focus problems; but a reduced zoom hides, well, at least some sins.
Yet another attempt at Omega Centauri	Another quick attempt at a slightly better Omega Centauri. Better focus, though still not perfect.
The Omega Centauri attempt above at 50%	The image above at 50% zoom, to show the environs better.
NGC6231 and environs	Not much exposure on this field; a quite wide zoom to show the various clusters and nebulae in the area, and to hide how much noise is visible at full resolution.
NGC6231 and environs, labeled	The image above, labeled to point out some of the many objects in this field.
M62	About an hour of exposures here. This globular cluster is in a very rich field of stars. Kind of lucked out in terms of image quality here, too.
M62, annotated	Kind of not worth annotating, but why not.
M19	Another very quick set of exposures — only an hour or so. As my image shows, this globular cluster is remarkably oblate. It's also very near the central lane of the Milky Way, so the background is very rich in other stars.
M5	Another quick globular cluster shot — less than 20 minutes of subs. Still, some nifty detail into the core of the cluster.
M5, annotated	An automatically-annotated version of the shot above. Clearly a field to add more time on; there are plenty of galaxies, and even quasars, in this field, but they aren't very visible with this little exposure.
M13 rising wide-field	A wide-field shot of M13 rising. Almost all of Hercules is visible, along with Vega and Lyra on the left. The glow along the horizon is mostly the Milky Way.
M13	The prettiest globular cluster visible from the Northern Hemisphere, this is one of my favorite observing targets. My attempts to photograph it have so far not had especially great seeing, but I keep working on it. My combined image shows NGC6207 well.
Deeper M13	A slightly deeper image of M13. This shows more faint stars, and gives more definite detail in NGC6207.
M13 from the city	This shot of M13 from the city isn't as deep or as good as previous shots, largely because I took this from the very light-polluted skies of suburban Taibei. Managed to get some good color here.
Better M13 from the city	More imaging time, better equipment, slightly better skill: result, a slightly better looking M13 globular cluster.
Even better urban M13	I managed to get quite good polar alignment for this one. Still, it took a lot of exposures, plus some image editing trickery, to bring out as much as I did. NGC6207 is plainly visible to the lower right.
M13 at higher magnification	M13, through the stronger optics of a short apo refractor. Lots of walking noise, but nice resolution and color; as with so many targets, this one calls for more exposures. At this resolution, NGC6207 doesn't fit within a web-resolution frame.
M13 at higher magnification, reprocessed	The image above, reprocessed to reduce noise and slightly increase detail.
Significantly improved M13	About 3.5 hours on M13 with a cooled camera, albeit from light-polluted skies and with a short focal length. NGC6207 doesn't fit within this field, but IC4617 does.
Significantly improved M13, annotated	The image above, with annotations. Still not enough exposure to resolve some of the quasars nearby; always more exposure called for.
M92	M92 is basically 'the other globular cluster in Hercules'. As many people have noted, it might get a lot more attention if it weren't overshadowed by M13 being so nearby. This is a total of about 40 minutes of exposures.
M92, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. I managed to get a pretty good number of background galaxies, especially considering the low total exposure time and the fact that the Moon was about 60% full that night.
Deeper M92	Just short of 1.5 hours of exposures reveals slightly more of the main cluster, as well as slightly more background galaxies.
Deeper M92, annotated	The above shot with automatic annotations. The annotations make clear why I used slightly different cropping here: to include the quasar SDSS J171457.53+430314.7, which is at z = 0.18134, or about 2.445 billion light-years away. It's barely visible in this shot, but at least it's there.
M92 at higher resolution	About 3 hours of exposure here, with a longer focal length, a cooled camera, and fairly good guiding.
M92 at higher resolution, annotated	Kinda not worth labeling, but why not.
M14	Finally got around to shooting this globular cluster, albeit only about 25 minutes of exposures. I'm not sure the cluster should be this yellow, but it's a nice effect.
Quick M9	Another Messier straggler for me. Only got a quick 10 minutes or so of exposures on this, and in dawn to boot.
Scorpius rising	An attempt at salvaging a cloudy night. This shows the brighter stars of Scorpius rising in the southeast. The bright red star is Antares; the bright white-bluish object is Saturn.
Antares and M4	In the core of Scorpius, Antares is a red giant that appears very red to the naked eye. Nearby is the globular cluster M4. In my image here, Antares, M4 and the bluish star Al Niyat form a wide isosceles triangle. Above and to the right of Antares is the dimmer globular cluster NGC6144; and there's a slight reddish cast from the Antares Nebula. Being close to the plane of the Milky Way, there should be lots of other interesting things visible here, but as of this photo, I haven't had time to add much imaging time here.
Better M4	A slightly better shot of M4. Still pretty noisy; I'll have to do a really dedicated series of exposures on this at some point.
Wider M4, Antares, etc.	A wider crop of the above image; this shows M4, Antares, NGC6144, some of the Rho Ophiuchi nebula, and lots and lots of stars.
Deeper Rho Ophiuchi region	About three hours of subs from a dark sky site reveals a lot more of the area; but poor alignment (there was a building in the way of the pole) made the fine detail not perfect. I have yet to get a really good shot of this region.
Deeper Rho Ophiuchi region, annotated	The above image, with annotations.
Deeper Rho Ophiuchi region, reprocessed	A slightly better version of the above image. I integrated this into my Slightly Deeper Sagittarius and Scorpius image, below.
Deeper Rho Ophiuchi region, reprocessed again	Tried to lower the noise level.
Another Rho Ophiuchi region	Yet another attempt at this region, this time with a basic lens from a dark site. Someday I will succeed at getting a good image of this region.
M107	A quick and somewhat noisy shot of this sparse globular cluster in Ophiuchus.
M107, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
Cat's Paw Nebula	Only about an hour of exposures, and from fairly light-polluted skies, but still, some nice definition here.
Cat's Paw Nebula, annotated	Another instance of "annotation? Why not?"
Cat's Paw Nebula environs	A wider-field version of the above image, to show various things nearby the Cat's Paw, in the stinger of Scorpius' tail.
Cat's Paw Nebula environs, labeled	The image above, with hand labeling for some of the more prominent objects.
M6	Not a lot of exposure here, so there's some background noise. The cluster appears to me to be surrounded in some bluish nebulosity, though I haven't been able to find sources confirming this.
M6, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. Although a lot of sources call it the "Butterfly Cluster", to me, the 'body' is thick enough that it should be the "Moth Cluster".
IC4665	A moderate open cluster that lies at the tip of what I think of as the Ophiuchus Fin. The bright star is Cebalrai.
M7	A pretty nice open cluster, sometimes called "Ptolemy's Cluster", in Sagittarius.
Deeper M7	Only about 45 minutes of subs from pretty light polluted skies still reveal vast numbers of stars in this rich Milky Way field.
B287	A different crop of the same image as above: the dark cloud B287, a nifty nebula appearing very close to M7.
M24 widefield	A widefield shot of M24 and the nearby deep sky objects. Not especially great alignment, because there was a building in the way of the pole; but a good amount of depth, considering that this is only about 7 minutes of subs (from a dark sky site). It's remarkable how bright M24 is even compared to the other star clouds in the Milky Way.
M24 widefield, annotated	The above shot, annotated. Only the major/Messier objcts are picked out; there are of course hundreds of other objects in this field of view.
M24, closer	A tighter view of M24, cropped from the above image at fuller resolution. The stars that are 'atop' M24 always suggest an upside-down house to me.
Another M24	A tighter, higher focal-length view of M24. The stars are so dense that the upside-down house shape is hard to make out.
Another M24, labeled	The above field with labels.
M8 to M24	Another widefield image of the field from M8 to M24. I find the zipper-like pattern of dark dust along the bottom of the frame here really interesting.
M8 to M24, labeled	The image above with some major objects labeled. It's kind of hard to label that zipper-like ribbon of dark nebulosity.
M8 and M20	M20, the Trifid Nebula, and M8, the Lagoon Nebula, are located in Sagittarius, visually near the core of the Milky Way. My image shows both; M8 is higher up, and M20 is bigger.
M8 and NGC6544	A deeper image of M8 (a result of better equipment and longer exposure); the full image also shows the globular cluster NGC6544, which appears near M8 in the sky but is actually about twice as far away as M8.
M8, M20 and M21	The whole M8/M20/M21 region, with slightly better equipment. This shows the two main nebulae, the main open cluster, and two prominent globular clusters. It also shows what I like to think of as the 'Foot', traced out in dark nebulae around M8 and its nearby region — can you find it?
M8, M20 and M21, labeled	The same image as above, with the major features (including the 'Foot') labeled.
M8 at higher resolution	An even deeper image of M8, and at higher resolution. Some remaining walking noise, that can't really be helped; slightly oblong stars, due to less-than-perfect polar alignment; but also lots of lovely details, including what I think are several Bok globules.
Deeper M20	A deeper image of M20; this is a crop from the same overall image as the M8 and NGC6544 image above. The open cluster above and to the left of the nebula is M21. Some nice color contrast, plus the dark tendrils of the central nebula.
M20 and M21 at higher resolution	Even more exposure and higher resolution; managed to get more more of the stars in M21, and nice detail on the features inside and the dark nebulae 'atop' M20.
M16	About 1.5 hours of exposures through a moderately long lens. The so-called "Pillars of Creation" area is barely visible here.
M16 with better equipment	Still only about an hour of exposures, so plenty noisy, but higher focal length reveals more detail. The "Pillars of Creation" area is much clearer here.
M16 at about 2 hours	Added a bit more exposure to the above shot, so slightly better noise levels.
M17	Another crop from the above M16 shot. The Swan Nebula has some lovely knots of gas within it.
Barnard 312	Yet another crop from the above M16 shot. Barnard 312 is a dark nebula that appears near M16 and M17. I was impressed with how it breaks off suddenly here, as if the nebula comes to a dense, sharp edge.
M22	The biggest globular visible cluster in Sagittarius, this came through surprisingly clear from my rooftop — even more surprising considering the huge amount of light pollution and the nearly-full Moon when I took this. NGC6642, another globular cluster, sits in the upper right corner of the photo.
Better M22	A deeper exposure of M22. This is a 100% crop, showing some pretty good detail into the core of the cluster, and has slightly better color balance.
M22 wider field	At 48% scale, the above image shows several other globular clusters, including M28 at right middle, with NGC6642 and NGC6638 forming a parallelogram with M22 and M28. The bright star at bottom right is Kaus Borealis, the tip-top tip of the teapot in Sagittarius. So far as I can tell, the broad dark lane running at an angle up and to the right, between M22 and M28, has no particular name.
Better M22 widefield	A little over two hours of exposure starts to reveal some of the lovely dust in this region.
Better M22 widefield, labeled	The image above, with the few noticeably large objects labeled.
M22 at higher resolution	Almost a year later, with not as much exposure time as the above versions, but at higher resolution. The focus was slightly off, so I opted to reduce my mistakes here, and as a result this is actually a 50% scaling of the full image.
M25	A wide-field shot, to include some of the nifty features nearby, but also to hide some of the flaws in this very short exposure.
M25, labeled	A few of the prominent features, labeled. It's kind of interesting that Trumpler 33 isn't in the larger catalogs.
M69	A fairly pretty globular cluster in a fairly dense section of the Milky Way.
M69, annotated	The above image, with automated annotations.
M70	Another globular cluster that appears quite close to both M69 and M54.
M70, annotated	That image, with automatic annotations. Again, lots of PGC galaxies in that field, though I'm not sure any of them are actually visible in my shot.
M54	About an hour of exposure. Not enough focal length to really resolve stars, but then, this object is very far away as globular clusters go. (Globular cluster? Core of the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy? Both?)
M54, annotated	The above shot, with annotations. Although there are a bunch of PGC galaxies in this area, I can't really make many of them out in here.
M55	Not a lot of exposure on this globular cluster, so I wasn't able to bring out many of the stars. Also, I think maybe my focus was slightly off? The stars are a bit too disc-shaped for my taste. Still, a nice image. The stars near the core form a sort of five-pointed star shape to me — do they for you?
NGC6723 and NGC6726	A nifty globular cluster appearing next to nebulas, both dark and reflective. Not much exposure, to be sure; as so often, a good target to add more exposure on.
NGC6723 and NGC6726, annotated	The image above with automatic annotations.
Barnard's Galaxy and the Little Gem	NGC6822 (Barnard's Galaxy) is a satellite of the Milky Way, about 1.6 million lightyears away. Slightly less than an hour of exposure only shows the center of the galaxy. In the upper right corner is NGC6818, the Little Gem Nebula; it doesn't show up as much more than a green disc in my image. Definitely good targets to revisit with longer focal length and more exposure.
Barnard's Galaxy and the Little Gem, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
A slightly better NGC6822	A few years later, tried again on NGC6822, with a longer focal length and a cooled camera. But still from light-polluted skies, and neither much focal length nor much exposure. Really, this was just a proof of concept to see if longer exposures would be worth it with this setup. Answer: Almost certainly.
Slightly better NGC6822, annotated	The field above, automatically annotated. Another good reason to add time on this field: The rich selection of galaxies and other objects (nominally) visible here.
Rising Summer Milky Way	An experiment with a fisheye lens, getting most of the (northern hemisphere) summer Milky Way rising beyond the horizon. The bright object at bottom center-right is Venus; the bright object poking out from behind trees further to the right is the Moon.
Milky Way in Scutum and Sagittarius	A stacked view of the central Milky Way, setting over Lake Superior.
Milky Way in Scutum and Sagittarius, annotated	The same image as above, with a few favorite targets noted.
Sagittarius wide-field	A nice view of the Sagittarius region of our galaxy, which includes the core of the Milky Wy. This image also includes the nova that appeared in Sagittarius in March 2015, as well as a bunch of deep sky objects such as the Trifid Nebula and Lagoon Nebula.
Milky Way in Sagittarius, from the city	This is not a particularly great shot, except when you consider that I took it from the southern suburbs of Taipei. Lots of subs, stacked, with a lot of processing.
Better Milky Way in Sagittarius	A nice shot of the core of the Milky Way, and it, too, was taken from the suburbs of a major city! Many more subs, lots of processing, and good luck result in a nicely deep shot.
Milky Way panorama	This is a panorama of the Milky Way, from Deneb and the North America Nebula (NGC7000) at the left to Antares and the southern reaches of Scorpius at the right. If my math is right, at its maximum extent, this image stretches about 95° through the sky — just about the distance from the horizon to zenith. The stitching centers on what I call the 'Great Fin', the portion of the Milky Way in Ophiuchus that appears to stretch out toward 70 Ophiuchi. The color matching of the two component images isn't great, but considering the components were taken about a month apart from completely different parts of the Earth, the effect is decent. The very bright object about halfway between M20 and the Dark Horse is Saturn.
Milky Way in Scorpius, Ophiuchus, etc.	Another nice shot of the core of the Milky Way. This was taken from more northern latitudes, so less of Scorpius is visible. Also, clouds were sweeping through, so they left some gradients (toward the bottom right and upper left). Otherwise, though, this is a fun shot. The Dark Horse is very prominent, as are lots of Messier objects. The bright object at middle right is Jupiter; Saturn is also visible, toward the bottom left.
Milky Way and Scorpius	Yet another shot of the core of the Milky Way. This is not a particularly great shot, except for two things: 1) I took this from highly light-polluted skies; and 2) I took this with my phone! It's so neat that phones allow this kind of quality these days.
Another Scorpius	Another wide-field image of Scorpius. Pretty good results, really, considering this is less than an hour of exposure from a suburban location.
Another Scorpius, labeled	The image above, with some prominent objects and the constellation of Scorpius labeled.
The Teapot and environs	A moderately wide field shot of the core of the Milky Way. This shot shows most of the stars of the Teapot asterism in Sagittarius, as well as what I often think of as the 'Teapot's Puffs of Steam': M8, M20, M21, etc. Quite a few Messier objects are located in this image, as well as lots of other NGC open clusters, dark nebulae, etc. The very core of our galaxy is also in this shot.
The Teapot and environs, annotated	Pointing out some of the more prominent features in this field, including M8, M20, M21, M6, M7, etc. M54, M69 and M70 are also in this field, but at this resolution, they don't really show up.
Full Teapot	The entire Teapot, as well as Corona Australis and some nice Milky Way core, as well as some intrusive clouds.
Full Teapot, labeled	The field above with major objects labeled.
A bigger, cloudier Teapot	A quick glimpse of the Teapot on a night with lots of clouds.
Slightly better Teapot	A quick glimpse of the Teapot on a night with lots of clouds.
Another Teapot	A pretty good wide-field Teapot.
Another Teapot, labeled	The image above, with major objects labeled.
Milky Way in Sagittarius and Scorpius	A widefield shot of the core of our galaxy, in the Sagittarius and Scorpius region. There were a lot of clouds moving through while I took this, which took a lot of processing to mostly remove; thus the patchiness/splotchiness.
Slightly deeper Sagittarius and Scorpius	Another widefield shot, nicely framing the entirety of Scorpius and the central bulge of the Milky Way. I integrated my reprocessed Deeper Rho Ophiuchi region image into this one, to get a little bit better detail from that area.
Soupy Milky Way	Another widefield attempt at the Milky Way core. Slightly better exposure, equipment, and skills; but not great weather, though.
Soupy Milky Way, labeled	The above image with a few prominent objects pointed out.
Saturn, Teapot and Jupiter	A slightly tighter shot of the Sagittarius 'Teapot' asterism, with various puffs of steam, from the more figurative (M8, M20, and the other nebulae on the central Milky Way) to the more literal (some clouds, toward the lower right). At upper left, the fairly bright 'star' is Saturn; the very bright 'star' at mid-right is Jupiter.
Saturn, Teapot and Jupiter, labeled	The above image, labeled. Lots of Messier objects visible in this image, as well as the very core of our galaxy.
Scorpius and Jupiter	A shot I've been trying to get for a while: A single, good image of the main body of Scorpius. Not deep or dark enough to show much of the Rho Ohpiuchi nebula, but at least I got most of the Dark Horse, and the full body of Scorpius is clear. The bright Jupiter, at mid-top left, is a nice bonus. Taken on the same night as the above Saturn, Teapot and Jupiter image.
Scorpius and Jupiter, labeled	The above shot, with labels.
Teapot and Scorpius	The two shots above, combined into a panorama to show the broad core of the Milky Way.
Another Teapot and Scorpius	Another combined Teapot and Scorpius panorama, perhaps somewhat better.
Another Teapot and Scorpius, labeled	The image above with labels. A busy area of the Milky Way.
Yet another Scorpius	Another Scorpius, but only a few minutes of exposure. Again, lovely what dark skies can do.
Yet another Scorpius, labeled	The image above, with some prominent objects labeled.
Setting Milky Way core	A fairly unremarkable image of the central Milky Way setting over some trees. Unremarkable, except for one thing: This is a single 60-second exposure. Nifty what dark skies and good technology make possible.
Vega with Bahtinov mask	This is just kind of a fun shot of Vega and its surrounds, taken with a Bahtinov mask in place. Bahtinov masks are used to achieve better focus, but they also make a neat spike pattern.
Vega and environs	Another short exposure of Vega, to show its nearby environs and its beautiful blue color.
M26	A wider-field view of this open cluster. It sits right in the central lane of the Milky Way, so the field is incredibly rich in stars.
NGC6712 and IC1295	A different crop of my M26 shot. Not only is the globular cluster NGC6712 in this shot, the planetary nebula IC1295 is, too.
NGC6712 and IC1295, annotated	The above shot, with automatic annotations. Helps find the planetary nebula, if you haven't yet.
M11	It's easy to see why this open cluster is sometimes confused for a globular cluster. It's so incredibly dense! Yet from the relatively young ages of its stars, it must be an open cluster.
Scutum star cloud	A pretty wide-field image of this slice of Milky Way.
Scutum star cloud, labeled	The image above with some prominent features labeled.
M56	A nifty globular cluster in a nifty field, dense with stars, near the central lane of the Milky Way.
Albireo	Not a lot of exposure; and the seeing was pretty poor, so the stars are surrounded by a bright halo. But still, managed to nicely record the color difference between the two stars.
Cygnus and Lyra widefield	Ended up with some annoying lens gradients in this, but the Milky Way section is pretty nice.
Cygnus and Lyra widefield, labeled	The above shot, with some constellations and prominent objects labeled.
Cygnus widefield	Basically just Cygnus; from darker skies, so the result is a little better.
Cygnus widefield, labeled	The image above, with some major objects labeled.
M57, the Ring Nebula	Planetary nebula M57, often called the Ring Nebula, is pretty easy to find; it's located about halfway between Sheliak and Sulafat, the two stars at the far end of Lyra from Vega. I don't have the magnification to give much detail in M57, but there's a nice little gradation of color, from red at the fringe, to white in the brightest parts, to blue towards the center. The bright star in the upper left is Sheliak.
Better M57	The same target, with better equipment and more exposure time. Still not enough magnification to bring out much detail, though; M57 is really pretty small.
Better M57, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations. It might be worth adding time to this image to bring out the background galaxies.
M75	Not a great shot! It was a night with strong haze, so I had to try hard to process out some bad gradients. But my first image of this globular cluster.
M75, annotated	Kind of surprising, considering the image quality, that some background galaxies are actually visible in this field.
Sadr and environs	A quick and dirty shot of Sadr, its surrounding nebula, and points nearby. The Crescent Nebula is visible in the lower right corner.
Sadr and environs, labeled	The image above, with some of the major objects identified. I'm not 100% sure about the identification of the 'upper' IC1318 here; it's been difficult to find definite answers as to what this particular nebula's catalog numbers are.
M29	A quick shot of this open cluster in Cygnus.
M29, automatically annotated	Almost not worth annotating; there aren't too many DSOs in this area. The many Hipparcos stars are kind of fun to note, though; and M29 lies near to the large outer extents of the Sadr nebula.
M72	A short exposure of this kinda middling globular cluster. I find the 'truss' of stars extending out of the cluster (toward the lower left, in my photo) kind of interesting. No other DSOs show clearly in this shot, so not adding annotation for this one.
M73	An odd Messier object, weird for how plain it is: Just a little asterism of four stars. M72 and M73 fit within the same field in my equipment, so this M73 shot was sort of a two-for-one.
M39	Finally got around to getting this object. Not a lot of exposure, but a widely dispersed open cluster like M39 doesn't need much exposure.
M30	About 3 hours of exposure on this globular cluster reveals not only some good detail in the cluster itself (look for the 'V' shape of stars emerging from the northern/upper right side of the cluster), but also a bunch of distant background galaxies.
M30, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. The arc of galaxies at upper right continues in both directions out of the frame. I think it's part of the same Abell cluster I did a separate crop of below.
M30 at c. 6 hours	The same region as above, at about twice the exposure time. Less noisy, but not really any more detail in the background galaxies.
M30 at c. 6 hours, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations.
Abell S0963 (?)	Appearing just north of M30 is a big cluster of galaxies that includes NGC7103 and NGC7104. I think the cluster is Abell S0963, but I'm not sure if I'm reading the catalog right.
Abell S0963 (?), annotated	The above field, with automatic annotations.
Abell S0963 (?) at c. 6 hours	Again, a crop of the 6-hour version to show what I think is Abell S0963.
Abell S0963 (?) at c. 6 hours, annotated	The above field, with automatic annotations.
NGC7479	Not much exposure, nor focal length, nor dark skies, but a kind of nice result even so.
NGC7479, annotated	Kind of not worth annotating, but there are a few nice galaxies in the background, including a quasar about 3 billion lightyears away.
Grus Quartet, center	The closest three galaxies in the Grus Quartet. A target I hope to add more time on, but even at relatively short exposure, NGC7599 reveals some blue regions.
Grus Quartet, center, annotated	The above image, with annotations.
Grus Quartet, wider	A slight zoom out to show all the main galaxies.
Grus Quartet, wider & annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations. A little hard to read at this resolution, but close enough.
Central Sagitta and M71	The globular cluster M71 sits nicely near the core of the constellation Sagitta, the Arrow.
Slightly better M71	Slightly better equipment reveals a little more detail in M71.
Even better M71	The same equipment, but considerably more exposure here.
Even better M71, annotated	The image above with automatic annotations.
Summer Triangle and Milky Way	The Summer Triangle is the stars Vega, Deneb and Altair, which are high in northern summer months. This wide-field shows NGC7000 (the North America Nebula) and lots of other detail.
Slightly deeper Summer Triangle	A slightly deeper view of the Summer Triangle. I actually took this as clouds rolled in, which led to some color cast, but the merged images gave a nice view of Vega, Deneb and Altair and beyond. The thumbnail highlights Collinder 399, also called the Coathanger cluster; and the wider frame nicely shows the great fin of the Milky Way's central bulge that extends toward lower Ophiuchus.
Even deeper Summer Triangle	About an hour of exposures. This was taken on a soppingly damp night; it's surprising I was able to get as much detail as I did.
Even deeper Summer Triangle, annotated	The above image with annotations. Some of the smaller targets aren't easy to see unless you significantly zoom in, but they're there.
Milky Way through Lyra and Cygnus	Another image of this lovely region, at slightly higher focal length. Only about nine minutes' total exposure, but from a dark site, so decent enough.
The Coathanger	A bit of a close-up on Collinder 399, also called the Coathanger. I like the color contrasts in the main stars. This image isn't really worth annotating, save to note that the small cluster in the upper right, just east of Collinder 399, is NGC6802.
NGC7000, the North America Nebula, and Deneb	A moderately wide field, the Deneb (the bright star at the top of the frame) through NGC7000, the North America Nebula. IC 5070, the Pelican Nebula, also shows up pretty clearly, just across the dark nebula from NGC7000, to the right in my image.
Slightly better NGC7000 and Pelican	This shot is taken from considerably more light-polluted skies than the one above, but I got much better polar alignment, and also much longer total exposure (yet still, only about an hour total), so the final results are pretty close. Some lovely dark lanes in the nebulae.
Another NGC7000	Not really an improvement here, just another attempt.
Another NGC7000, labeled	The image above, with some major objects labeled.
M27 from the city	M27, the 'Dumbbell Nebula', is really quite bright, but it took a lot of stacking and tweaking to get anything decent under light polluted skies.
Deeper M27	With several hours of exposures, M27 reveals a lot more. Pretty sure I've gotten the central star here, though there aren't a lot of sources that say exactly which one that is.
Slightly more detailed M27	Only about a half hour of exposures, but with a larger scope, reveals slightly more detail in M27. It really looks like the gas is being thrown out in two directions by the central star, with its axis of rotational offset from the axis of emission, tracing out a conic (two cones touching at their tips). No idea if that's actually true, though; I haven't seen any sources stating that such an idea is true.
A perhaps slightly better M27	Again only about a half hour of exposures, but with a better camera and guiding.
NGC6946 and NGC6939	This is always a lovely field to look at, with the relatively nearby open cluster NGC6939 seated within a kite or swan shape of even nearer stars, and NGC6946, the so-called Fireworks Galaxy, located much further away. NGC6946 has earned its moniker by having more supernovae than any other easily-visible galaxy. My image captures the most recent supernova here, 2017eaw.
NGC6946 and NGC6939, labeled	The same field as above, with the two DSOs and the supernova labeled.
Slightly better NGC6946 and NGC6939	This series was from a much more light-polluted location, and the supernova had certainly faded in the two or so intervening years. But with considerably more exposures (just over two hours) and a lot of processing, the overall results were actually better.
Slightly better NGC6946 and NGC6939, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. Surprisingly, a few distant background galaxies show through the dense field of Milky Way stars.
NGC6946 and NGC6939 at higher resolution	Finally managed to image this field at a slightly higher resolution. Not enough exposure, though.
NGC6946 at higher resolution	A crop from the image above, to show the galaxy NGC6946.
NGC6946 at higher resolution, labeled	The image above, plus annotations.
NGC6939 at higher resolution	Another crop from my higher-resolution NGC6946 and NGC6939 image, to show the cluster NGC6939.
NGC6939 at higher resolution, annotated	The image above, with annotations. The annotations reveal why I chose this crop; there's a very dim, but detectably present, galaxy (PGC64824) appearing very near the cluster that is only about six million lightyears away.
Train and Delphinus	A train streaks past, as Delphinus sets in the west.
M15 from the city	M15, a globular cluster in Pegasus.
Same M15, different city	More exposures, revealing more of the globular cluster.
M15 with better equipment	About 1.25 hours of exposures, with better equipment, reveals yet more of the globular cluster.
M15 with better equipment, reprocessed	The above image, via better processing to lower noise and preserve color better.
M15 with better equipment, reprocessed & annotated	The above image, with automatic annotation.
Another M15	Another attempt at M15. I had focus and other problems with this one, so this is a zoomed-out approach to hide the flaws. Not going to upload the annotated version of this one, since there isn't much worth annotating than the cluster at this scale.
Yet another M15	Another attempt at M15. This time, the focus was a little better. I stretched this one a lot, because the data was decent enough to bring out some nice background detail.
Yet another M15, annotated	Almost not worth annotating, but there are a couple nice quasars in this field.
Yet another M15, wider-frame	Another, fuller-field crop of that M15 image above. This also minimizes some of the focus issues, as well as uncovering a nifty thing: In the upper right third or so of the frame, the background faintly shows a right-pointing arrow of integrated flux nebula. Neat!
NGC7331 and Stephan's Quintet	NGC7331 is a gorgeous spiral galaxy in Pegasus; my image shows only its very core. Nearby is Stephan's Quintet (NGC7317, NGC7318A, NGC7318B, NGC7319 and NGC7320); my image only barely reveals this group of galaxies.
Better NGC7331 and Stephan's Quintet	A deeper (all-night, basically) image of NGC7331 and Stephan's Quintet. There are also several other galaxies in this frame.
Labeled NGC7331 and Stephan's Quintet	A labeled version of the above deeper NGC7331 image. The Stephan's Quintet galaxies are labeled, in the lower right, though my image doesn't quite split NGC7318A and NGC7318B. Lots of other galaxies in this frame, too, including quite a few PGC galaxies.
Even better NGC7331 and Stephan's Quintet	An even deeper, multi-night shot of NGC7331 and Stephan's Quintet. This combines about 5.5 hours of subs, taken with slightly better equipment. This barely shows the 'underside' of 7331's central bulge, as well as giving some nice color contrast in the Quintet.
Even better NGC7331 and Stephan's Quintet, annotated	The same image as above, with automatic annotations via astrophotography processing software. The PGC objects are all galaxies. The brown objects are quasars, or at least where they should be; it's uncertain if this image actually shows any of their photons.
Even even better NGC7331 and Stephan's Quintet	Hmm, if I'm going to keep adding images when I add subs, I may need a different namescheme than just "better", "even better", etc. Still, NGC7331 is a target I really like, and plan on continuing to add subs to. This iteration is up to about 6.25 hours of subs, the hard way (all in the 35-second range). Starting to get some detail in the arms of the main galaxy, and a bit more detail in some of the background galaxies. I also shrunk the stars slightly to subdue the bloating a bit.
Even even better NGC7331 and Stephan's Quintet, annotated	The same 6.25-hour image with automated annotations.
Further improved NGC7331	NGC7331 via better optics and a better mount. This represents about 4 hours of subs; I still hope to add more time on it, to increase the general image quality.
Further improved NGC7331, annotated	The image above, automatically annotated.
Yet further improved NGC7331	This now represents about 7 hours of subs. Starting to get some nice detail in the galaxy's flocculence, as well as fainter background objects. After a few iterations of reprocessing, I've finally got a version that mostly satisfies me. As of 2018, this may be my final image of NGC7331. Well, at least for now.
Yet further improved NGC7331, annotated	The image above, automatically annotated. There are many very faint galaxies in this image.
NGC7331 at 7 hours, reprocessed	Yep, this image again. This time with slightly better processing, to reveal a bit more detail. This actually has slightly higher noise than the image above, but with the benefit of more natural gradients.
NGC7331 at 7 hours, reprocessed & annotated	The image above, automatically annotated. There are many very faint galaxies in this image.
NGC7331 at c. 5 hours with a cooled camera	Trying again on the NGC7331 field, with the same optics and mount but a cooled camera. Much better color this time, and I think better detail, since I didn't have to suppress noise as aggressively.
NGC7331 at c. 5 hours with a cooled camera, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. Even the 2MASS galaxies are showing up pretty nicely here.
Stephan's Quintet	A different crop of the image above, showing Stephan's Quintet. Starting to get a nice little bit of detail in the galaxies.
Stephan's Quintet, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated.
Improved Stephan's Quintet	A crop of my 2018 July-September series, at a total of about 7 hours of subs. Some nice detail in some of the objects, such as the varying density gradients in NGC7320 and the spiral arms of NGC7318B. After several goes of processing, I managed to retain some nice detail in, e.g., the NGC7319 tidal tail.
Improved Stephan's Quintet, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. As with other crops of this series, the field contains many very faint background galaxies.
Stephan's Quintet at 7 hours, reprocessed	Another reprocess of this image. Again managed to preserve some good detail and keep the gradients a bit more realistic.
Stephan's Quintet at 7 hours, reprocessed & annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. As with other crops of this series, the field contains many very faint background galaxies.
Stephan's Quintet at c. 5 hours with a cooled camera	Another crop from my 5-hour cooled camera image of this field. Lost some of the detail in the NGC7319-PGC69279 filament, but with better color and lower noise overall.
Stephan's Quintet at c. 5 hours with a cooled camera, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated.
UGC 12127 group	Visually nearby NGC7331, there is a nice long string of galaxies, the biggest of which seems (from my unreliable research) to be UGC 12127. In this image (which is just a separate crop of the same wider-field image, above), the galaxies are just little fuzzballs. But still, there are a bunch of galaxies here; and many are 300+ million light-years away. Indeed, not only are there UGC and PGC galaxies, there are some that I've so far been unable to identify with any certainty. For an amateur astrophotographer working from pretty light-polluted skies with modest equipment, this is very satisfying.
Labeled UGC 12127 group	The same UGC 12127 group as above, with the various galaxies labeled. Many barely rise above the background noise, but are definitely there.
Improved UGC 12127 group	Again a crop of my 2018 July to September c. 7 hour NGC7331 series, this time to show the UGC 12127 (aka PGC69385) galaxy cluster. 7 hours shows quite a lot of detail in the galaxies: the central bar and some detail in the spiral arms of NGC7342, for example, and some very faint galaxies.
Improved UGC 12127 group, annotated	The above image, with a combination of automatic annotation and manual annotation. There are some truly obscure galaxies in this shot, such as 2MASX J22383404+3523340 and [MLO2002] B2 2236+35 J223803.2+353009, which I have annotated manually. Close inspection reveals lots of even fainter objects. Kind of near PGC3088581, there's a barely visible object; after consulting a deep sky catalog, I confirmed that it must be a galaxy, but it also appears to have no commonly accepted label/name! I've called it "Unnamed galaxy" in my image. And closer examination pretty quickly reveals a half-dozen similar objects in this field. If you happen to know of authoritative names for these galaxies, please let me know.
Improved UGC 12127 group, re-annotated	A friend inspired me to do some closer inspection of those unnamed galaxies. Although ALADIN didn't have those galaxies listed, a deeper search of NED revealed that they have WISE catalog numbers.
WBL685 group at 7 hours, reprocessed	It turns out that what I thought was the UGC 12127 or PGC69385 galaxy cluster has a perhaps better-known, or at least more proper, name: the WBL685 group, a specific group within the WBL galaxy cluster catalog.
WBL685 group at 7 hours, reprocessed & annotated	The above image with annotations. I'm not actually sure what the maximum extents of the cluster are, but the bounding box is at least a good selection of the core galaxies.
WBL685 group at c. 5 hours with a cooled camera	Another crop from my cooled camera image of this field. Very nice color and detail, but this crop also reveals how poor my centering on the field was; the big black triangle in the upper right is where the cluster actually falls off the sensor.
WBL685 group at c. 5 hours with a cooled camera, annotated	The above image with annotations. I'm not actually sure what the maximum extents of the cluster are, but the bounding box is at least a good selection of the core galaxies.
NGC7331 at c. 15 hours	Decided to dedicate another half-year or so imaging NGC7331, including a few hours from a dark site; this is my longest total exposure for a single image so far. Managing to get pretty good, finally.
NGC7331 at c. 15 hours, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations.
Stephan's Quintet at 15 hours	Another crop from that 15-hour exposure. This shows more of my optical problems, with distinctly oblong stars; but it also reveals a lot more background detail.
Stephan's Quintet at 15 hours, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated.
WBL685 group at 15 hours	Another crop from my 15-hour image of this field. I maybe went a little overboard on the saturation here. This reveals one of the main motivations for this latest imaging of the region: to not have the WBL685 group cut off by the edge of the frame. Lots of lovely galaxies in this region.
WBL685 group at 15 hours, annotated	The above image with annotations. I checked redshifts for a random smattering of objects in this field. It seems likely that the outer extents of the cluster go well beyond the limits of this frame.
M31 and Winter Milky Way	The winter Milky Way is hard to photograph: it's not nearly as dense or contrasty as the parts that are visible in summer. This is an attempt at bringing out some of the Milky Way visible through Cassiopeia, Perseus and Cepheus. It also features a bunch of deep-sky objects: the Double Cluster; M31, the Andromeda Galaxy; M33, the Triangulum Galaxy; and others.
M31 and Winter Milky Way, annotated	The same image as above, with annotations by me.
M31 to M33	A widefield (though not as wide as the above) showing the region from Triangulum, at left, to M31 at right. The stars are a bit too blue, but the overall effect is nice.
M31 to M33, labeled	The image above, with some prominent objects and constellations labeled.
Milky Way through Cassiopeia and Perseus	Late on a summer night, the Milky Way in the region of Cassiopeia and Perseus parallels the topology of the valley I was in. The Double Cluster is visible between Cassiopeia and Perseus; M31 and M33 are barely visible toward the upper right; and the glow along the right side of the frame is from the Moon.
Moonglow from behind a hill	The Moon, not yet risen from behind a nearby hill, casts a very bright glow, and even crepuscular rays. M31 is pretty obvious at top left; M33 is a little hard to spot, but present, below and to the right of it. The red glow beneath the hill is from a fellow amateur astronomer.
Milky Way through Cassiopeia and Perseus, with Moonglow and M45	Later the same night as the shots above, the Moon had risen. The Milky Way stretches from Cassiopeia at mid-left to Perseus at mid-bottom. M31 is near mid-top, and M45 is at bottom right. The bright glow at right is from the risen Moon. The fuzzy blur at bottom right is me, moving around where I probably shouldn't have been.
Cassiopeia, Auriga, M45 and Moonglow	Still later the same night, the Moon had fully risen, as had Auriga. Clouds were also drifting through.
Cassiopeia and the Double Cluster	A fairly long exposure on the Cassiopeia region from a dark site. Had some focus issues with this one.
Cassiopeia and the Double Cluster, labeled	The image above, with a few specific targets labeled.
Perseus to the Hyades	A fairly long exposure on most of Perseus, M45, NGC1499, and the Hyades. Like the above image, I had some focus issues with this one.
Perseus to the Hyades, labeled	The image above, with some prominent targets labeled.
Another Perseus	Another attempt at a widefield Perseus. Got better focus this time, I think.
Another Perseus, labeled	The image above, with some major objects labeled. Forgot to label Algol, though.
M31, the Andromeda Galaxy	The whole galaxy, including its satellites M32 and M110. I think this also shows some of the globular clusters in those galaxies — neat!
Better M31	About an hour of exposures from a dark site, plus some pretty heavy processing, reveals a lot more detail in the galaxy. I couldn't get the lovely brown-and-blue hues I've seen in many other people's M31 shots, but the overall depth is nice.
Better M31, reprocessed	I tried a full reprocess of that M31 image; doing so revealed some of the lovely brown dust colors, though not much of the blue.
Better M31, reprocess 2	Tried to bring out both the brown and the blue. The colors are nice, but not very natural.
Better M31, reprocess 3	Hmm, I seem to keep revisiting this image. Tried to bring out slightly more natural colors this time, and reduce noise.
M31, M32 and M110 at higher resolution	Only about 2 hours, from quite light-polluted skies, so there's a lot of noise; but the overall color is better than I've managed to get before. At this focal length, M31 wouldn't actually fit web resolution, so this is about a 24% crop of full-size. This shot didn't seem particularly worth annotating, since background galaxies aren't really visible; in case you're curious, M32 is the dwarf just to the left of M31's core, while M110 is the larger but fainter one below and to the right of M31.
M31, M32 and M110 at c. 4.25 hours	Continuing the above series; starting to reach fairly low noise. Also a reduced crop, and also not annotated due to scale.
M110 at 100%	A 100% crop of the above image, to show M110. Some of M110's (rather unusual, for a dwarf spheroidal galaxy) dust lanes show up pretty clearly at this resolution. Another one that doesn't seem worth annotating; there aren't many listed galaxies in this field.
M31 from dark skies	Only a little over an hour, but from dark skies, so I managed to get a lot more of the color. (And in truth, I also bumped up the saturation a bunch to emphasize it.)
M33	The Triangulum Galaxy. This is very faint, not only because the galaxy itself it faint, but also because the image only includes about 240s of imaging.
Better M33	A better image of M33. This combines about 30 minutes of exposures.
Even better M33	An even better image of M33, with the advantages of both far greater time and slightly better equipment.
Even slightly better M33	Combining a better color-processed version of the above shot, with a few hours of exposures via better equipment, reveals some more subtle detail in the galaxy, as well as lots of background objects.
Even slightly better M33, automatically annotated	Combining a better color-processed version of the above shot, with a few hours of exposures via better equipment, reveals some more subtle detail in the galaxy, as well as lots of background objects.
M33 at c. 8.35 hours	Continuing the series above: c. 1.6 hours at low focal length, and c. 6.75 hours with better equipment. Starting to get some better detail in this galaxy, but also getting well into the point of diminishing returns.
M33 at c. 3 hours from a dark site	A full 3 hours, all with the same equipment, from a fairly dark site. This is a c. 40% crop to show the entire galaxy. Had some focus issues with this series, but otherwise — what a difference dark skies make!
M33 at c. 3 hours from a dark site, labeled	The image above with some possibly-notable objects labeled.
NGC507 and friends	From a dark site and with pretty good equipment, but also with less than an hour of exposure and some focus issues. This rich field of galaxies would be nice to try on again with more exposure and maybe better optics.
NGC507 and friends, annotated	That image with automatic annotations.
M2	A relatively short series of subs, and when the globular cluster had nearly set; but I had previously not shot this GC at all. Definitely something to improve upon.
Slightly better M2	Adding a bit more imaging time to the above series.
Slightly better M2	Adding a bit more imaging time to the above series.
Even slightly better M2	c. 40 minutes of exposures this time, revealing quite a few more stars.
Even slightly better M2, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations. Three quasars (SDSS J213601.36-002803.7, SDSS J213526.84-003543.3 and SDSS J213333.50-005821.1) are apparently in this field, but I can't actually see the quasars themselves. Can you?
M2 at higher resolution	About 3.5 hours of exposure, taken over two consecutive nights, with a longer focal length and a cooled camera from light-polluted skies. Managed to get pretty good focus here.
M2 at higher resolution, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations.
Asteroid 8577	Another fun thing happened when I took those two nights of images on M2. When I inspected the first night's subs, I saw the telltale faint smudgy line of an asteroid. And then when I added in the second night's exposures, I got the same asteroid at two different places along its track. First up, the unlabeled image, so you can see if you can find it yourself.
Asteroid 8577, annotated	That image, annotated. It took some finding, but I figured out that it was asteroid 8577 Choseikomori. Also, interestingly, the bottom right corner of this field contains what appears to be a galaxy cluster.
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M52	Finally got around to shooting this open cluster in Cassiopeia. No need to annotate this; M52 is the only major object in the field.
NGC7635, the Bubble Nebula	Part of the same wider field as M52, above. Not very high resolution, but the 'bubble' is at least resolvable. Again, not worth annotating, because the Nebula is the only major object in this field.
M52 and NGC7635, wide-field but higher-res	The wider field of M52 and the Bubble Nebula at longer focal length, but wider-field to show the general environs. This doesn't seem worth annotating, since M52 and NGC7635 are both pretty distinct. It's interesting, though, that the seeming cluster to the southeast of M52 (upper left in this image) is apparently not an actual association.
M52 at higher resolution	A 100% crop of M52. This crop also shows the seeming (but not actual) cluster to the southeast of M52.
M52 at higher resolution, annotated	This field doesn't show much worth annotating, but it's perhaps worth noting where the borders of the cluster are.
NGC7635 at higher resolution	A 100% crop of that same shot, this time of the Bubble Nebula. This is a fair amount of exposure, but it was quite close to a full Moon, so it took a lot of processing to bring out the nebulosity.
NGC7635 at higher resolution, annotated	Also not really worth annotating, except perhaps to show the bounds of the nebula.
M52 and NGC7635 at lower resolution	The same M52 and Bubble region with a lower-resolution lens. Less detail, but perhaps better color and background.
M52 at lower resolution	A 100% crop from my lower-res shot, above. Managed to get pretty good focus, and I feel like the color is a bit better here.
NGC7635 at lower resolution	Another 100% crop from my lower-res shot. Again, pretty nice focus and color here.
Slightly better M52 and NGC7635	Got some better resolution and focus from a dark sight. Still not great, but getting better.
Slightly better NGC7635	M52 from that above image isn't really worth putting up (too many focus problems), but the NGC7635 is worth a full-scale crop.
NGC7814	Only about two hours of exposures here. The central lane is clear, but not much else. As so often, a target I'd like to add more time on.
NGC7814, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated.
Slightly better NGC7814	Still about the same total exposure, but more selectively chosen from a wider pool of subs and perhaps better processed.
Slightly better NGC7814, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated.
Widefield NGC7814	About the same amount of exposure, but at a lower focal length, means less noise but less resolution.
Widefield NGC7814, annotated	The above shot with automatic annotations.
Another NGC7814	Another attempt at this galaxy. Again only about two hours of exposure, and from a pretty light-polluted site as well; but this is with a cooled camera, thus reducing background noise a lot.
Another NGC7814, annotated	The field above, automatically annotated.
NGC247	A little over three hours of exposure on this faint galaxy from light-polluted skies with fairly wide-field optics gives… still not great results. A target I might try from dark skies, but otherwise, probably not worth adding more exposure.
NGC247, annotated	The above field with annotations. A pretty rich field.
NGC253, the Sculptor Galaxy	The Sculptor Galaxy, also called the Silver Coin Galaxy, is located pretty far south; as a result, I haven't been able to get many decent exposures yet. But I've managed to bring out a little of the flocculent detail in the galaxy.
Better Sculptor Galaxy	With the advantage of better equipment and long imaging, I was able to get some nice color and detail on this galaxy's many dust lanes. There's even a hint of the central bar.
NGC253 and NGC288	A few years later, I tried again on NGC253 (the Sculptor Galaxy) and NGC288 (a globular cluster that appears very nearby the galaxy). Still from a light-polluted site, but this time with better equipment, longer exposure, and slightly better skills. Both the galaxy and the cluster were worth publishing, so first, a zoom out to show the wider field.
Full-scale NGC253	Here's NGC253 from that image at 100% scale. I was surprised at 1) how huge this galaxy is, and 2) how much detail even this relatively low focal length and exposure reveals. Would be nice to image NGC253 from a dark site with more time.
Full-scale NGC253, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations.
Full-scale NGC288	Another crop from that image to show NGC288. I think the cluster really is this sparse; it's not just an artifact of my imaging process.
Full-scale NGC288, annotated	The image above with annotations.
NGC300	About 3.5 hours of exposure on this very low-brightness galaxy from within city lights doesn't reveal much detail. It does show some of the star-forming regions in the galaxy, and some background galaxies, though.
NGC300 annotated	The annotations reveal why I chose this crop; the Abell supplemental 102 cluster of galaxies sits in the upper right corner of the frame.
NGC300 from darker skies	Only about 1.5 hours of exposure this time, but from a much darker location, so the results are vastly better. Also managed to get pretty good focus this time.
NGC300 from darker skies, annotated	I like the little cluster of galaxies in the lower right. Sometime, I may try to get all the various clusters/nebulae within NGC300 annotated.
NGC457	Nicknamed the Own Cluster or the ET Cluster, this is a quite nice open cluster in Cassiopeia. This crop also shows NGC436, another open cluster that appears near NGC457 (but is actually a thousand or more LY further away). This was a night with a rather full moon, but following the principle that star clusters are good targets for bright nights, this came through pretty well with not a lot of total exposure. This is a target I've shot before, but never gotten anything really worth publishing until this point.
NGC457, labeled	The above image, automatically annotated. There are also quite a few galaxies in this field, but none of them really show up due to the relatively short total exposure time.
NGC474 and friends	As an experiment, I did a fairly wide-field image of NGC474, NGC520, NGC488 and points in between. This is a crop from that. NGC474 is a nifty elliptical (?) galaxy that, with long exposures, shows amazing concentric, swooping shells of stars. My image here, though, only has about two hours of exposure, and from a light-polluted location. Thus, only the tiniest hints of the shells are visible. But there are lots of other nifty galaxies in the field.
NGC474 and friends, annotated	The image above, with annotations.
NGC488	Another crop from my wide-ish-field NGC474/NGC488/NGC520 image. NGC488 is a nice elliptical with some nearby-appearing galaxies.
NGC488, annotated	The image above, plus annotations. Nice how many 2MASX galaxies I got with only two hours of exposure.
NGC520	Another crop from my wide-ish-field NGC474/NGC488/NGC520 image. NGC520 is two galaxies colliding; not a lot of detail at my relatively low focal length, but still some nifty features, including an arcing tidal tail.
NGC520, annotated	The image above, with annotations. There are a surprising number of quasars in this field.
M74	A very nice face-on spiral in Pisces. This image shows only a little detail.
Better M74	This combines about five hours of subs, from a pretty light-polluted site. I managed to pull out some good color and detail.
Better M74, annotated	The image above, automatically annotated via software. There are a fair number of (faint) background galaxies in there. Some are quite far away; PGC 87243, for example, is just about 1 billion light-years away.
M74 with better equipment	A better telescope and mount, but actually less total exposure, nonetheless reveals pretty decent color and detail in this galaxy.
M74 with better equipment, automatically annotated	The above image with automatic annotation. Not a lot of background galaxies visible here, but at least there are a few.
M74 at c. 3.5 hours	Continuing to accumulate exposures on M74; even better color and detail now.
M74 at c. 3.5 hours, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. A perhaps surprising lack of PGC galaxies in this field.
M74 at c. 7 hours	Adding a lot more time gives even more detail, including on faint background objects.
M74 at c. 7 hours, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. Plus hand-done annotations; I decided to go for broke and try to find redshifts and distances for every object in this shot. There are several objects in the field that aren't even in the 2MASS catalog, which is one of the neat benefits of long exposure time.
M74 at c. 8 hours	This one took me a while to process. I added the extra 70 or so minutes about a month after the previous shot. For a while, it seemed that adding the extra time didn't really result in much image improvement. But learning some new processing techniques made it worthwhile: I managed to drop the noise a bit while also increasing the detail.
M74 at c. 8 hours, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. I just copied the hand-annotations from the above image, but I then had to re-rotate the image to get everything to basically line up. I also did a bit more careful checking of some of those galaxies not in the 2MASS catalog. Once I delved into NED, I found their WISE catalog numbers.
M74 at c. 8 hours, reprocessed	Went back and reprocessed my earlier image to further reduce noise, add detail, and improve the colors.
M74 at c. 8 hours, reprocessed & annotated	I did a more thorough search through the WISEA catalog to find everything that rose above the noise in this image. Basically every distant galaxy should be labeled.
KX 257, a quasar near M74	Another reason to add a lot of time on objects: quasars start to become very easy to spot. Appearing quite near M74, the quasar KX 257, aka [MHP2012] KXq 0257 and also SDSS J013629.58+150253.0, is at redshift 3.167100. That means the comoving distance is about 21.661 Gly, for a light travel time of 11.677 Gyr, or about 84% of the age of the universe away. This shot takes another distance record for me.
KX 257, annotated	The shot above, with automatic and hand-made annotations to clarify what's what.
KX 257 at c. 8 hours	The same field as above, but with slightly more time and better processing. Still the same quasar: KX 257, aka [MHP2012] KXq 0257 and also SDSS J013629.58+150253.0, at redshift 3.167100, comoving distance c. 21.661 Gly, and light travel time of 11.677 Gyr. Still a distance record, and now slightly clearer.
KX 257 at c. 8 hours, annotated	The shot above, with automatic and hand-made annotations to clarify what's what.
KX 257 at c. 8 hours, reprocessed	Another crop from my reprocess of my 8-hour M74 series. KX 257 is very clear, as are lots of other faint background galaxies.
KX 257 at c. 8 hours, reprocessed & annotated	The above image, with annotations. Tried to annotated basically every deep sky object visible in the frame.
NGC660	From the same field as the above "Better M74" shot, NGC is maybe the most famous of the rare class of polar ring galaxies. (Indeed, Wikipedia uses NGC660 as the illustration for what a polar ring galaxy is.) A polar ring is where the core of the galaxy and the outskirts of the galaxy orbit in different orbital planes. The S-curve of peripheral stars only barely shows up in my image here, but well enough to make a darker lane across the brighter core.
NGC660, annotated	My NGC660 shot above, annotated. PGC 6292, appearing above and to the right of NGC660, is apparently a pair of interacting galaxies, but I haven't been able to find many sources for this.
Better NGC660	NGC660 from much darker skies, with longer total exposure (c. 4 hours), and with better equipment.
Better NGC660, annotated	The above image, plus automatic and hand-rendered annotations.
Better NGC660, reprocessed	The same image as above, but processed better to reveal more detail while keeping noise lower.
Better NGC660, reprocessed and annotated	The above image, plus automatic and hand-rendered annotations.
M74 and NGC660 from darker skies	With my new camera, I decided to get both M74 and NGC660 within a single image. I think I had some focus issues, but the site was pretty dark, so the overall quality is pretty good. Here, a zoom out to show the full field.
M74 and NGC660 from darker skies with detail views	Added a couple 100% zoom views to the image above, to show more detail of M74 and NGC660 while also showing the wider field of view. Yes, the full-res image is quite large.
M74 from the M74-NGC660 image	A full-res crop of the above image to give more context on M74.
M74 from the M74-NGC660 image, annotated	The above image with automatic annotations.
NGC660 from my M74-NGC660 image	Another full-res crop from the wide-field M74-NGC660 image, this time to show NGC660. Is this better than my "Better NGC660" image above? Hard to say.
NGC660 from my M74-NGC660 image, annotated	The above image, with annotations.
Asteroids from my M74-NGC660 image	When I inspected my wide-field M74-NGC660 image, I found some nifty bonuses from imaging near the ecliptic: The distinct tracks of several asteroids. Two of them even fit within the same crop.
Asteroids from my M74-NGC660 image, annotated	The image above, with annotations to show the asteroids and other objects.
M76	Finally got around to imaging this planetary nebula (and with it, completed the Messier list).
M76, annotated	Almost not worth annotating, but as usual — why not.
Double Cluster, tree and satellite	A very serendipitous shot: the Double Cluster (NGC884 and NGC869) was rising behind a tree, just as a satellite happened to blaze through the field. Especially lucky, because my dark adaptation had gotten wiped out by an errant light, and I was very much shooting in the dark!
Double Cluster with better equipment	This is a 32% crop of a wider-frame image. So much detail here! The Double Cluster is lovely not just because it resembles two piles of tiny diamonds, but because the whole thing is set atop the plane of the Milky Way, so a moderate exposure like this reveals that the whole area is full of gorgeous shining gems.
NGC752	A short (c. 30-minute), low-quality series on this very large open cluster. This is a 75% crop, to show more of the context of the cluster.
NGC752, annotated	The above image, with annotations. I was kind of surprised how many PGC galaxies show up even at this short exposure length.
A brief NGC772	Didn't even get 40 minutes on this before clouds moved in. And from pretty light-polluted skies, to boot. All told, not bad, considering the conditions.
Brief NGC772, annotated	The image above with automatic annotations.
NGC891 and neighbors	This is a lovely edge-on galaxy in Andromeda, and apparently pretty similar in dimensions to the Milky Way. Many of the faint fuzzballs in this image are other galaxies; the visually much smaller spiral galaxy NGC898 is below and to the right of NGC891 in my shot.
NGC891 and neighbors, partly labeled	The above image, with just a portion of the galaxies labeled.
NGC891 and neighbors with better equipment	Better equipment, but not as much imaging time as this field demands, plus some serious walking noise (correlated noise). As in my images above, there are lots of background galaxies in this field, with NGC898 very prominent at the upper left.
NGC891 and neighbors with better equipment, automatically annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. My database of quasars, basically the HMQ, lists a quasar CXO J02224+4221 appearing right next to NGC891, but a) I'm not sure I actually see it at this exposure length, and b) I can't find any online databases that confirm that quasar name (it appears to be in the wrong format).
Cleaner NGC891 and neighbors	Same equipment as above, but with slightly better data, gives much less noise and better color.
Cleaner NGC891 and neighbors, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated.
NGC891 at c. 4 hours	Adding time to the shot above. The central dust lane and its extensions are starting to show nicely here, so, a 100% crop to show the detail.
NGC891 at c. 4 hours, annotated	Adding time to the shot above. The central dust lane and its extensions are starting to show nicely here, so, a 100% crop to show the detail.
NGC891 from darker skies	Not much exposure, and not-great focus, but from darker skies.
NGC891 from darker skies, annotated	The image above with automated annotations.
Abell 347	Another crop from my NGC891 image above, this time to show the galaxy cluster Abell 347. So many galaxies!
Abell 347, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations.
NGC925	A nifty disturbed spiral. NGC925, NGC891, NGC1023, and several other galaxies are part of the NGC1023 group. Had some focus issues while doing this one.
NGC925, annotated	Tried a very large quasar catalog (the Million Quasar catalog) on this one. It indicated a huge number of quasars in this image, but most of them weren't actually visible, presumably due to my relatively low total exposure. So I don't think I'll use that catalog in the future, unless I start getting much better access to dark skies.
NGC1023	A nifty lenticular galaxy with another galaxy apparently 'linked' to one end; another member of the NGC1023 group.
NGC1023, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations.
M77 and NGC1055	Not a lot of exposures, here, and not great detail, so although supernova 2018ivc is in this field, it's not really clear. The edge-on spiral galaxy NGC1055 reveals a bit more detail at the top of the frame.
M77 and NGC1055, automatically annotated	The above image, automatically annotated.
M77 with better equipment	Not a lot of exposure, but still enough to reveal a nice little bit of detail in the central core, and hints of the outer figure-8 spiral arms.
M77 with better equipment, automatically annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. PGC135659 is labeled at the top left of the frame, but I'm not convinced I see anything there.
NGC1055 with better equipment	Another crop from the above wider-field image including M77, showing the lovely edge-on spiral NGC1055 at better resolution.
NGC1055 with better equipment, automatically annotated	Not many objects in this frame, but still worth labeling to point out a couple distant PGC galaxies.
A better M77	About 2.5 hours of exposure from a dark site with a cooled camera reveals the really quite remarkable figure-8 spiral arms, as well as some nice detail near the core.
A better M77, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. For whatever reason, this region is just chock-a-block with known quasars.
Better NGC1055	Another crop from that better M77 image. I like how 3D NGC1055 looks here.
Better NGC1055, automatically annotated	Another field with lots of noted quasars.
NGC1073	Another crop from my 2.5-hour M77 image. This galaxy has a quite lovely structure. Please don't notice how awful my stars are here.
NGC1073, automatically annotated	The image above with annotations.
NGC1087 and NGC1090	Yet another crop from my 2.5-hour M77 image. Two quite nice galaxies that at least appear to be distantly interacting.
NGC1087 and NGC1090, annotated	The image above, plus annotations.
NGC1097	Only about 2.5 hours of exposure, but from a dark site and with a cooled camera, so a nice amount of detail in this interestingly-distorted galaxy.
NGC1097, annotated	The annotations make clear why I chose this crop: A few quasars, including one at z > 3.0.
NGC1300 and nearby galaxies	One of my favorite galaxies, NGC1300, is a lovely classic barred spiral in the southern sky. There's a pretty famous Hubble image of this; my image here of course doesn't even compare, but at least the bar and the main arms are clear. Definitely something to collect more photons from. Also, visually nearby NGC1300, my image shows the quasar MS 03180-1937, which is probably about 1.3 billion light-years away.
NGC1300, annotated	The above image, with lots of objects labeled (primarily PGC galaxies, but also the quasar MS 03180-1937 and NGC1300 itself).
NGC1300 at c. 3 hours	Same equipment, but more time. Not much detail, because not much focal length; but at least there's less noise than the above shot alone.
NGC1300 at c. 3 hours, automatically annotated	The above shot, with automatic annotations. Lots of PGC galaxies in this field.
Better NGC1300	More focal length, and from a dark site; but I think I also had some focus issues with this one, so not all that much detail.
Better NGC1300, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations.
NGC1232	Another crop from my better NGC1300 image. Still some focus issues, and the stars aren't round enough; nifty galaxy, though.
NGC1232, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations.
Perseus Cluster	One of the major galaxy clusters in the nearby universe, the Perseus Cluster is huge, with many, many galaxies (some sources says thousands) located about a quarter-billion lightyears away. Many of the fuzzballs in this image are distant galaxies. This crop only shows the center of the cluster; the full cluster extends well beyond this field in all directions.
Perseus Cluster, automatically annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. The galaxy NGC1275, toward the center top, is considered the core of the Perseus Cluster.
Slightly deeper Perseus Cluster	A couple extra hours of rather Moon-brightened exposures of the above image allows bringing out slightly more of the dim fuzzies.
Slightly deeper Perseus Cluster, automatically annotated	The above image, automatically annotated.
Slightly deeper Perseus Cluster, reprocessed	The same image as above, with slightly better processing, to bring out a bit more detail and suppress noise better.
Slightly deeper Perseus Cluster, reprocessed & annotated	The above image, automatically annotated.
Perseus Cluster from a dark site	Only a few hours of exposure, but from a pretty dark site and with a cooled camera, so considerably more detail. So many galaxies!
Even deeper Perseus Cluster, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations. Almost too dense to read.
Melotte 20 and Mirfak	The bright star Mirfak, in Perseus, surrounded by the open cluster Melotte 20.
Slightly better Melotte 20 and Mirfak	Not much more data, but slightly better skill this time.
Slightly better Melotte 20 and Mirfak, labeled	Labeling the major stars in this field. At this (very short) exposure, no galaxies are really visible.
NGC1365	Sort of near NGC1300 in the sky, NGC1365 is another barred spiral that is part of the Fornax Cluster. Only about 30 minutes of exposures here; this is definitely a target I want to add more time on.
Deeper NGC1365	Added more time on this shot; about 85 minutes of exposures, here, reveals more of the arms and hints a bit at the dust lanes, as well as revealing more of the central core (which looks something like a spiral itself, because of the dust lanes that appear to lay atop it).
Core of the Fornax Cluster	The Fornax Cluster, of which NGC1365 is a member, is a rich galaxy cluster about 60 million lightyears away. This is just the core galaxies, including NGC 1399, which is kind of the central one in the cluster. The cluster will also take a lot more imaging time; it would be nice to get some more detail on the spirals, and deeper images show that NGC1399, for example, extends about three times as wide as in my image.
Core of the Fornax Cluster, annotated	The Fornax Cluster is pretty dense with galaxies; this automatically annotated version identifies most of the galaxies, but they're so densely packed that it's a little difficult to read. At some point, I may do a hand-annotated version to separate out the various galaxies.
Deeper Fornax Cluster core	The above image with about twice as much exposure. This reveals more of the extent of the major galaxies, and reveals a bit more of the background galaxies.
Deeper Fornax Cluster core, annotated	Still not particularly easy to read, but the background galaxies are easier to see.
NGC1350	Yet another crop from the Fornax cluster/NGC1365 shot that the above shots are taken from, this is a pretty cool galaxy that appears near the Fornax cluster, but which is apparently not part of it (because it's about 20 million light years further away than the Fornax cluster is). NGC1350 has a sort-of barred ring nearer the core, then two spiral arms that are tightly curled into a figure-8. My image reveals the central ring and slight hints of the figure-8 arms.
NGC1350, annotated	NGC1350 is easy to spot, but there are also some background galaxies in this shot; here they are labeled.
Quasar Q 0329-378	My wider shot of the Fornax cluster reveals a lot of maybe-quasars. This one, Q 0329-378, is the furthest one I'm reasonable certain is actually there/actually rises above the base level of noise. Assuming those actually are photons from Q 0329-378, they're among some of the oldest I've ever imaged. At z = 1.745, the photons had been traveling for something like 8 to 10 billion years (depending on your model of the universe) since they started their journey; the quasar is about 15 or 16 billion light years away from us (in terms of comoving distance, again depending on the model of the universe used). As of this shot, this is the furthest thing I'm reasonably certain I've actually imaged.
Even deeper Fornax cluster	Several years later, I got the chance to image this cluster from dark skies, with a cooled camera, and managed just short of four hours' exposure on it. First, a zoom-out to show the center of the cluster.
Even deeper NGC1350	A crop from the four-hour, dark-sky Fornax Cluster to show this nifty galaxy.
Even deeper NGC1350, annotated	The image above, with annotations. Lots of background galaxies in this field (though of course that's always true).
Even deeper NGC1365	Another crop from my four-hour, dark-sky Fornax Cluster image. Kind of proud of how much detail I managed to get from this barred spiral, considering the short focal length I'm working with.
Even deeper NGC1365, annotated	The image above, with annotations.
Even deeper NGC1380	Another crop from my four-hour, dark-sky Fornax Cluster image. Several obvious galaxies in this field.
Even deeper NGC1380, annotated	The image above, with annotations. Lots of galaxies in this field.
Even deeper NGC1399	Another crop from my four-hour, dark-sky Fornax Cluster image. I think this is close to the core of the cluster, so there are lots and lots of galaxies visible in this field.
Even deeper NGC1399, annotated	The image above, with annotations. Many galaxies, indeed.
IC342 galaxy	About five hours of exposure from a dark site. This galaxy is heavily obscured by having a galaxy in the way — the Milky Way. As a result, when I saw the result with my 360mm refractor, I was surprised at just how huge this galaxy is. To even get it into this 800x600 image, I had to zoom out to 90% scale.
IC342 galaxy, annotated	The image above, annotated. This annotation clarifies why I chose the crop I did; the rather nearby galaxy PGC166077 is located (though not especially apparent) in the upper right of my image.
M45	A fairly noisy shot of the Pleiades, this nonetheless shows all the main stars with some good color and clarity.
Clearer Pleiades	A better image of the Pleiades.
Deeper Pleiades	An even better image; this one captures some of the nebulosity near the cluster. (Which, by the way, is not actually associated with the cluster; the nebulae and the stars apparently have different radial velocities.)
Even deeper Pleiades	A result of not more exposure time, but of shooting from a very dark site, this shot shows a good amount of the nebulosity around the Pleiades.
Even deeper M45, reprocessed	The above image, with slightly better processing to reduce noise and increase detail.
Short, silly M45	A very short series (only about 9 minutes of total exposure) in very poor conditions (light pollution, seeing, etc.). I was surprised how much of the Merope Nebula I could bright out, even with not a lot of exposure. This is a 30% crop, to show the full context.
Another somewhat deep M45	Not a lot of exposure here, but from a dark site and with a cooled camera, so the overall noise is about the same.
Venus with the Pleiades and Hyades	The closest part of the April 2020 conjunction of Venus and the Pleiades was all clouded out for me. I managed to get this shot, though, once Venus had moved quite a way away from the Pleiades. The Hyades nicely fits within the same field of view. Not a lot of exposure, though, so the overall image is pretty dim.
Widefield Hyades	Less than an hour of exposures. This lens certainly has a lot of purple fringing! But the detail is nice. I hadn't noticed before that there's a hexagon of stars near Aldebaran.
The Hyades, Pleiades, and Mars	Not much exposure, and from light-polluted skies. But I thought the arrangement of these three objects was nifty.
The Hyades, Pleiades, and Mars, labeled	Just to make sure, here is that image labeled. This image made me realize I should observe NGC1647 sometime.
Open clusters in Auriga	The Messier open clusters in Auriga. From left to right, they're M37, M36 (the Pinwheel Cluster) and M38 (the Starfish Cluster). The star in the upper left is Theta Aurigae.
Open clusters in Auriga, reprocessed	With the advantage of a couple more years of processing skill, I was able to get a bit more detail out of this image.
Open clusters in Auriga, reprocessed & annotated	The above image, with hand-made annotations.
Central Auriga	A very short exposure of the central Auriga region, and poorly focused at that.
Central Auriga, labeled	The image above, with a few significant DSOs labeled.
M38 and NGC1907	Not a lot of exposure, but higher focal length, reveals a fair amount of detail in these open clusters (though almost none in the nearby nebulae).
M38 and NGC1907, annotated	The above image, with automated annotations.
Auriga and M45	Auriga and the Pleiades through a gap in the clouds.
A deeper Auriga	About two hours of wide-field exposure on central Auriga from a pretty dark site.
Deeper Auriga, labeled	The image above, with some major objects labeled.
M38 and environs	About three hours from a dark site with a cooled camera on the area around M38, including NGC1907 and a lot of other pretty things. This is a 22% zoom to 1) show the wider region and 2) hide how terrible my stars look.
M38 and environs, labeled	The image above, with some prominent objects labeled.
Orion, the Pleiades and Comet Lovejoy	I took this from the city, so the light pollution is pretty bad. Nonetheless, it shows the color variations in the various stars, with the red giants nicely orangey, and it even gives a slight hint of the greenish cast of Comet Lovejoy.
Orion, the Pleiades and Comet Lovejoy, annotated	The same image as the above, with all the major objects labeled.
Setting winter constellations	More or less the same field as above, though from a dark-sky site. This shows Orion, Taurus and part of Perseus setting in the west. The image includes Aldebaran and the Hyades, M45 (the Pleiades), and M42/43 (the Orion Nebula). Comet Lovejoy had moved on by this point.
Widefield Orion	About an hour of exposure, from a light-polluted site; this also required a lot of processing, because of heavy gradients from haze in the air. Note how dim Betelgeuse is compared to Rigel at this point.
Slightly better widefield Orion	Less total exposure, but slightly better luck with gradients.
Much better widefield Orion	About an hour from a dark site. Had some focus issues, but finally got Barnard's Loop, at least.
Much better widefield Orion, labeled	The image above, with some prominent objects labeled. I haven't labeled the big reddish nebula surrounding the head and neck of Orion here; I think this might be Sharpless 264 (the Lambda Orionis Ring), but I'm not sure what its extents are in this image.
Another good widefield Orion	Another attempt at a widefield Orion image. Much better focus this time out. Still not much detail on Barnard's Loop and the other faint features, though.
Another good widefield Orion, labeled	The image above, with some prominent objects labeled.
Widefield Orion with probable meteor	As I was inspecting the subs from the above image, I found a nice surprise: This sub appears to contain a nice bright meteor, maybe even a fireball. The brightness curve and color gradient seems very fireball-like, and if you look closely, there's even a vapor trail.
Widefield winter Milky Way	The (northern hemisphere) winter Milky Way; an experiment with a fisheye lens to show the entire sky in a single frame. This is untracked, so stars are trailed, though it's not super-apparent at this zoom. This shows basically all the winter constellations; a probable satellite stretches through Gemini.
Widefield winter Milky Way with star trails	After I took the image above, I did a bunch more subs and created a star trail image with them. Orion, etc. here are beginning to set; the stars are at the beginning of the trails, not the end of them.
Rising Orion	Orion rising above storm clouds. I lucked into M42 being framed by the boughs of a tree.
M1, the Crab Nebula	M1 is a supernova remnant - not quite a planetary nebula, then. At the center is a pulsar, which has been sending out signals amazingly rapidly and regularly ever since its formation in 1054 CE. That was when the star that created M1 and the pulsar exploded in a supernova; we have Chinese historians of the time to thank for noting the sudden arrival of this 客星 kèxīng 'guest star'.
Better M1	Only about 1 hour of exposure, and from a pretty light-polluted location to boot. Still, an improvement.
Better M1, annotated	The image above, annotated. Not many background objects visible here, but, why not.
M79	Located south of Orion, this has the odd status of being a Messier globular cluster on the other side of the sky from most of the rest, which are generally a lot closer to the core of the Milky Way. The bright pair of stars toward the bottom of the frame are HD 35162, and are apparently a true multiple-star system.
M79 with better equipment	Not much exposure, but slightly longer focal length, reveals more detail in the core.
M79 with better equipment, annotated	Not sure this is worth annotating, but why not.
Another M79	Again, not much exposure, but perhaps better focus and from a dark site so revealing slightly more of the cluster.
Another M79, annotated	The image above, annotated. There is a smattering of background galaxies in this field.
M42 & M43	The famous Orion Nebula. M42 is the bigger, palm frond-shaped section; M43 is the smaller blobule at the base. NGC1973, NGC1975 & NGC1977, three related nebulae, are in the upper third of my image.
M42 & M43 from the city	Basically the same view as above, but with a lower-focal length lens and from a more light-polluted site, but with the advantages of additional time and skill.
A better M42 & M43	A better version of M42 & M43 (the Orion Nebula), taken with better equipment and longer exposures.
M42, M43 & environs	A wider crop of the same image, at 50% scale, showing more of the Orion Nebula itself, as well as the neighboring 'Running Person Nebula', NGC1973, NGC1975 & NGC1977.
Higher-res Orion Nebula at 40%	Not a lot of exposure, so fairly noisy, but higher-res due to using a longer focal length. Also some deliberate high-dynamic range processing to reveal details hidden in blown-out parts. This is a 40% crop of a much larger image.
Higher-res Orion Nebula at 28%	The above image, but cropped at 28% to show the nearby Running Person Nebula.
Slightly better Orion Nebula at 28%	A longer exposure on the Orion Nebula area, with generally better results. This is scaled to show the whole 'sword': M42, M43, and the Running Person nebula.
Slightly better Orion Nebula at 40%	The same image as above, at slightly higher resolution to show just M42 and M43 proper.
Slightly better Running Person nebula	A full-size crop of the above image, to show the Running Person. The walking noise in this running person becomes quite apparent at this scale.
Another 'Sword'	A later attempt at the whole 'sword' area of Orion. The overall noise level here is better, including way less walking noise.
Another 'Sword', labeled	The image above, with some major objects labeled.
A much deeper 'Sword'	Only about an hour of exposure, but from a pretty dark site, so a lot more of the faint nebulosity shows up. In fact, I could pull out even more nebulosity, but then the noise would start to show up more prominently, too.
A much deeper M42/M43	A closer crop of the image above to show just M42 and M43.
A much deeper NGC1977	Another close crop of the image above, this time to focus on NGC1977.
Alnitak and the Flame Nebula	Alnitak is the star that appears furthest "left" in Orion's Belt, at least from the northern hemisphere. NGC2024, the Flame Nebula, is visible nearby it. The famous Horsehead Nebula (IC 434?), is also barely detectable in this image.
Better Flame and Horsehead Nebulas	Longer exposures and better equipment of approximately the same field. Not a lot of definition in the Horsehead, but still definitely there.
Even Better Flame and Horsehead Nebulas	Actually not especially long expsosure time here (c. 20 minutes total), but a slightly better camera, so better sensitivity.
Considerably better Alnitak and Flame Nebula	With much better equipment, and a lot longer exposure, there's a lot more detail in the Flame.
Considerably better Alnitak and Flame Nebula area, annotated	The above image, automatically annotated. I'm a little surprised how many 2MASS objects are in the nebula; I checked a few, and they all appeared to be "infrared sources", which I suspect means they're mostly Bok globules or otherwise soon-to-be-born stars.
Considerably better Horsehead and NGC2023	Another crop, this time 100%, from the above wider-field Horsehead image, this time including the Horsehead and NGC2023 proper.
Considerably better Horsehead and NGC2023, automatically annotated	The above image, plus automatic annotations. It's interesting what the Horsehead itself is labeled as; some sources seem to call it IC434, but from what I can tell, that catalog number is properly reserved for the crimson emission nebula 'behind' the Horsehead; the Horsehead itself is Barnard 33.
Wider-frame Horsehead region	A one-third zoom of the wider-frame image, to show the Flame, Horsehead, etc. in context. What a lovely region!
Wider-frame Horsehead region, annotated	A hand-annotated version of the above image, to point out some of the major objects.
Alnitak and Flame at c. 6 hours	At about double the exposure of the above shots, there's more detail and less walking noise.
Alnitak and Flame at c. 6 hours, annotated	Not sure if it's worth adding the annotated version of this, but why not.
Horsehead and NGC2023 at c. 6 hours	Another crop from the 6-hour fuller frame. The noise is much more apparent at this scale, but at least better than in the previous version.
Horsehead and NGC2023 at c. 6 hours, annotated	The above image, plus automatic annotations.
Wider-frame Horsehead region at c. 6 hours	The wider 6-hour field at about 28% zoom. At this scale, the noise is much less apparent.
Wider-frame Horsehead region at c. 6 hours, labeled	Another hand-annotated version of the above image, to point out major objects.
Orion's belt	The area from the Horsehead to Mintaka, roughly. Less than an hour, but from a fairly dark site, so a lot of faint detail is revealed here, including some rather faint nebulae.
Orion's belt, labeled	The image above, with some prominent objects labeled. I was surprised that there isn't a very common name for the nebula near Alnilam I've labeled here as Ogura-Sugitani 29; that label is based on their 1998 article, which I hope I've cited correctly. Perhaps there is a more common name for this cloud, but I haven't found one.
Horsehead and Flame	A tighter crop from the above image to give a bit more detail on the area around Alnitak. Not as much resolution as my 6-hour image above, but possibly more depth, due to it being from a dark site.
Horsehead and Flame, labeled	The image above, with some prominent objects labeled.
Another Horsehead	Another attempt from bright skies, with a cooled camera and more focal length. Managed to get rid of the walking noise, at least.
Rosette Nebula	The Rosette Nebula appears kind of near Orion, but is actually about four times further from us. The Nebula includes the rather nifty open star cluster NGC2244; the various parts of the Nebula itself have different NGCnumbers. My shot has about two hours of subs, collected over about three hours of imaging; skies were fairly hazy, so the final result has a lot of processing to reduce noise and bring out the colors. Managed to get some decent results with the dark lanes against the nebula. This is a 50% crop of the full image; the Rosette is very large.
Better Rosette Nebula	The Rosette with better equipment and longer exposures, from a much darker location. The Rosette covers this entire field of view; indeed, it extends considerably further than this frame. But with my relatively short total exposure time here, only the central portion is visible.
Sirius and M41	A fairly wide-field shot showing both the open cluster M41 and Sirius.
Sirius against the Milky Way	A better shot of Sirius, showing the star against the Milky Way. And also M41, at the bottom of the frame.
M41	This open cluster is quite beautiful, with a nice variety of star colors, set against the dense Milky Way. To me, its form suggests a phoenix or pterodactyl, with its head up and wings in mid-flap; the bright star 12 Canis Majoris then suggests an egg or a branch that M41 is flapping away from.
M41 with better equipment	Higher resolution and better equipment here. This is a 37% crop of a much wider field. Less color aberration than the above shot, but the higher resolution makes it seem much sparser. I'm not sure which shot I like better.
M35	A quick series of exposures on this lovely object. I like the contrast with NGC2158.
M35, automatically annotated	Almost unnecessary, but easier than labeling everything by hand.
M50	Another quite lovely open cluster lying 'on' the winter Milky Way. M50 has a nice variety of star colors.
NGC2403	I've attempted to image this galaxy many times, but never really gotten a satisfactory result. This image is still not satisfactory, but decent enough to publish. Not really worth annotating, though; the only object in the frame that's really identifiable is NGC2403 itself, and that doesn't need labeling.
Open clusters M46 and M47	These two open clusters are in the pretty-far-south constellation of Puppis. M46 is the more densely-packed one.
Better M46 and M47	Slightly longer exposure with better equipment. This reveals NGC2438, the planetary nebula that appears 'in' M46 (but is apparently a foreground object), a bit better, as well as several other nearby open clusters.
Better M46 and M47, annotated	The image above, with hand-done annotations of some of the major objects.
M47	A 100% crop of M47 from the above image. Tried to reduce the purple fringing here, but not very successfully.
M47, automatically annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations. Not much more than the cluster itself here to note.
M46	A 100% crop of M46 from the above image. Got some nice detail on the planetary nebula.
M46, automatically annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. Not much worth annotating, but it's kind of nice to see the exact extent of the planetary nebula.
M93	Had both exposure and some kind of focus problems when doing this one, I think. But still, a somewhat decent result.
M48	Not a lot of exposure time here, but still, so many stars! This cluster suggests to me a squashed M41, or perhaps a goblet. This is a 35% crop to show the whole cluster in one frame.
M67	A very quick shot of M67. I could certainly use more exposure on this target.
M67, automatically annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. Although there are a couple HMQ objects in this field, I can't actually see them at this level of exposure, so I haven't looked up their redshifts.
NGC2683	A pretty edge-on galaxy in Lynx. I got about 3 hours of exposure on this, but at a focal length that doesn't reveal much detai; the dust lane at the outer edge is only barely apparent here. A good target to revisit with better equipment.
NGC2683, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. Another reason to revisit this field with better equipment: the field is rich in galaxies and quasars.
Quasars near NGC2683	Not much to look at, but this field contains another distance record for me: a quasar at c. z = 3.17.
Quasars near NGC2683, annotated	Annotations show how rich this field actually is: four quasars, and a dozen or so closer galaxies. SDSS J085706.27+333744.8, at z = 3.174493, is as of this photo my current distance record.
Better NGC2683	Only about an hour of exposure, but from a dark site and with better equipment. Some nice detail near the core here.
Better NGC2683, annotated	The above image, with automatic annotations. Indeed, there are lots of background galaxies in this field.
NGC2685	This galaxy is a member of the rare class of polar ring galaxies. I imaged it from a dark site, but I only got about 1.5 hours on this target, and had some thin cloud to deal with, and not a lot of focal length, so the result is kinda disappointing. I might try imaging this again if I get a telescope with longer focal length, maybe.
NGC2685, annotated	The image above, with annotations. Lots of nice background galaxies here.
NGC2775	Not a lot of exposures here (only about an hour), and with relatively poor equipment. Got a little of the detail in this complex galaxy. Clearly a target to add more time on.
NGC2775, annotated	The above shot, with annotations. The field is rich in quasars, but only a few actually show up with this amount of exposure.
A better NGC2775	About 4 hours of exposure, and a little longer focal length (but from light-polluted skies), reveals a bit more detail on this galaxy (though not much).
Better NGC2775, annotated	This is a pretty rich field for cataloged quasars. Also, very close inspection shows, to my eyes, a very small galaxy cluster below and to the right of NGC2775. I don't know if this cluster has a listed name; one of the objects, for example, appears to be 2MASS J09102233+0704083.
NGC2841	Only about 1.5 hours of this galaxy. Another good target to add time on.
NGC2841, annotated	The above shot, with annotations.
NGC2841	A whole 19 minutes on this galaxy, but with a cooled camera and from a dark site, so… maybe better? Should still add time on this target.
NGC2841, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations.
NGC2997	A pretty nifty galaxy. Need to add more exposure and, really, focal length on this target.
NGC2997, annotated	The image above, with automatic annotations.
M44, the Beehive Cluster	M44, also called the Beehive Cluster or Praesepe, is a quite lovely open cluster — a scattering of stars close together, within our galaxy, maybe 600 light years away. I like the central part of the cluster, which has what I like to call the "triangle of triangles" (three groups of star triads).
M44, the Beehive Cluster, with Triangle of Triangles	Here's the Triangle of Triangles labeled.
M44 from darker skies	Long exposures and much darker skies mean a better-quality image.
M44 from darker skies, wider field	When I took the image above, I noticed that if skies are dark enough, M44 naked eye looks surprisingly like M13, complete with stars to either side (in this case, Asellus Borealis and Asellus Australis). It was actually somewhat disconcerting, like seeing an amoeba without a microscope. But it still makes for a pretty picture.
M44 very wide field	Not many subs (only about 7 minutes' total exposure), and also very near a full moon; this took a lot of processing trickery to get even half-way decent. The full shot includes both Castor and Pollus.
M44 very wide field, annotated	The shot above, annotated to show what's what.
M44 and Mars	From the December, 2024 conjunction. This is a zoomed-out version to show both the planet and the cluster. I decided to leave in Mars' lens flares.
M44 core	A 75% crop from that M44/Mars image. Please ignore the nasty spikes (probably from pinched optics) on my stars. Chose this crop partly for the lovely Triangle of Triangles, partly for the bonus edge-on galaxy appearing 'behind' the cluster.
M44 core, annotated	That core image, annotated. Cool just how many galaxies are visible within the extents of the cluster.
Jupiter and M44	Another attempt at salvaging a pretty cloudy night; I got a shot of Jupiter as it was very close to M44, the Beehive Cluster, separated by a band of clouds. All four of the Galilean satellites are visible next to Jupiter.
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Jupiter, three Galileans and Sigma Leonis	I managed to get pretty good polar alignment the night of 2016 March 12, which allowed me to take this fairly decent image of Jupiter. (Decent considering that I wasn't using a telescope, just a fairly long lens.) The three dots near the planet are (from left to right) Callisto, Ganymede and Europa; Io is lost in the glare of the planet itself. The bright-ish star on the left is Sigma Leonis.
Jupiter	An attempt at getting a decent image through a 6" Dobsonian telescope, not on a motorized mount. The bands are clearly visible, as are some of the Galilean moons.
Slightly better Jupiter	Another attempt at imaging Jupiter, this time with a much smaller refractor, but with a motorized mount. For a rig not at all optimized for planetary imaging, this shows some nice detail.
Slightly better Jupiter, labeled	The above image plus hand annotations. I can't really make out the tropical belts or anything closer to the poles in my shot; more detail would require a much more dedicated rig, I suspect.
Another Jupiter	Another attempt at imaging Jupiter. Managed to get a slightly better stack this time, though still not much detail. The Gallileans here are, from left, Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede. I think Io was behind Jupiter at this time. North is at about 11 o'clock here.
Saturn	A quick & dirty attempt at planetary imaging of the most famously ringed planet. Not a great image by any means, but hey, at least the rings are clear.
Slightly better Saturn	Another quick & dirty image. The shadow of the disc on the rings is pretty clear, and I think I can see hints of the northern equatorial belt.
Moon, Jupiter and Saturn conjunction	In the run-up to Jupiter and Saturn's very close conjunction of 2020, here's a shot of both of them quite close to the Moon. The insets are 100% crops, showing that the full image shows both our Moon and the two gas giants' moons in the same shot.
Jupiter and Saturn conjunction w/ eclipse-like Moon ring	Another shot from the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction of 2020, with fairly thick clouds. The Moon was a sliver here, and due to exposure length, cloud cover, etc., I got a rather diamond ring-like pattern on the Moon. There was no real eclipse here, but it's a neat effect.
Jupiter and Saturn conjunction w/ Moon	Another shot from the same night as above, but with slightly less cloud cover and slightly more earthshine. This image is also heavily edited to preserve a wide dynamic range.
Jupiter and Saturn conjunction w/ M75	The image above, at higher resolution and cropped to focus on Jupiter and Saturn, reveals all four Galilean moons as single bodies. Also in the frame, barely visible above the background noise, is the globular cluster M75. Would've been good to collect more time so M75 was actually visible, but the clouds didn't cooperate.
Jupiter and Saturn conjunction w/ M75, labeled	The image above, with labels to point out the major objects in the frame. M75 is really just barely detectable.
Mars	A very basic image, taken at low focal length, during Mars' close approach of 2020.
Venus and Aldebaran	Barely recorded this fairly close conjunction between the very bright planet and not-quite-so-bright star. Managed to get the crescent shape of Venus, at least.
Venus and M67	From a conjunction of Venus and M67. Had to process this very heavily to bring out both the crescent shape of Venus and the background stars. I kind of like the effect, with both Venus' halo and the planet itself.
Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)	A very quick (c. 1 second) and very dirty (dovetail bar just hand-braced against a nearby wall) of this bright 2020 comet. Not great, but hey, it's something.
Slightly better Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)	About a minute of exposures here. Managed to bring out the color in the nucleus, as well as hints of detail in the tail.
Slightly better Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE), wider field	A zoom out to show the broader comet context. Note the color contrast between the comet and Tania Australis (the red star at left) and Tania Borealis (the bluish star at right).
Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) and NGC5466	I managed to get an image of Comet Leonard as it appeared to pass by the globular cluster NGC5466. Getting both the stars and the comet to be untrailed took a lot of masking; this image is certainly not 100% representative.
Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) and NGC5466, labeled	The image above, with some major targets labeled.
The Moon	This is a panorama of images made through my 6" Skyquest telescope — an experiment in digiscoping. The flare off to the right is an artifact of the panorama process.
The Moon	Another panorama of the Moon, at about 68% waxing. Not as clear as my Skyquest shots, but still showing some good detail, including on Copernicus.
Moon and Clouds	Dramatic clouds rising along with the Moon, following Orion and Gemini.
Downtown Minneapolis and the Moon over Lake Bde Maka Ska/Calhoun	This is actually a panorama of several images to get the whole scene in. The star at top center is Capella; the one at right center, to the right of the Moon, is Betelgeuse.
A mostly-full Moon	A single frame still of the Moon. Not a lot of focal length on this, but pretty good tracking and focus give some nice detail.
A 40% Moon	A bit of digiscoping - a single frame, at fairly high focal length. Managed to get some nice detail in the craters near the terminator.
40% Waxing Moon at 100%	A 100% crop of the above image, to show some of the detail near the center of the disc. Lots of easily identifiable craters there.
40% Waxing Moon at 100%, labeled	The 100% crop above with some annotations for easily-identified features.
44% Waning Moon	The Moon at about 44% illumination, waning. Some lucky imaging with my main imaging rig here pulled out some good detail for a relatively short focal length.
44% Waning Moon, labeled	The above image, with annotations for some of the more prominent features.
60% Waning Moon	Another attempt at lucky imaging with gear not at all optimized for planetary imaging.
63% Waning Moon	Slightly better detail here, due to slightly better skill.
60% Waxing Moon	Yet another attempt at lucky imaging, this time with gear even less optimized for planetary imaging. Also, the disc seems less than half illuminated to me, but according to my apps, it was about 60% when I took this. Not sure what's up with that.
97% Waxing Moon	Another basic Moon image. When the Moon is this full, it's a little difficult to get the contrast good; increase the contrast on the disc, and the terminator moves away from where it actually was.
99% Waning Moon	The Moon when very, very close to full. This image orientation shows the Rabbit pretty clearly.
90% Waning Moon	Another quick appetizer shot of the Moon.
87% Waxing Moon	Got some nice detail along the day-night line with this one, including the rim of Mare Humorum shining in sunlight beyond the terminator.
36% Waning Moon	A little detail in the Montes Jura and in Copernicus here.
38% Waxing Moon	Some nice contrast in the southern craters here.
57% Waxing Moon	Could probably pump the contrast to get more detail along the terminator, but I kind of like having the brightest areas not blown out like this.
75% Waxing Moon	Copernicus stands out nicely here.
8% Waxing Moon	Not a great shot, but one of my closest shots to new. Imaging the Moon when it is this close to the Sun is difficult.
3% Waning Moon	Another attempt at getting the Moon close to new.
95% Waxing Moon	Another simple shot with not a lot of focal length.
19% Waning Moon	Another attempt at imaging the Moon at close to new.
51% Waxing Moon	Another quarter Moon image. I had pretty good luck in doing a sort-of HDR effect on this image, bringing out details both in the highly-exposed and minimally-exposed parts of the disc.
38% Waxing Moon	Another attempt at bringing out some Earthshine.
17% Waxing Moon	Yet another attempt at bringing out Earthshine. I went maybe a little overboard on this one.
Northern Lights 1	The night of 16 August 2015 had some lovely aurorae.
Northern Lights 2	More shots of the August 16 aurorae. Note the red spike towards the middle; the coloration wasn't obvious naked eye, but its appearance as a glowing column pointing to the zenith was very clear.
Aurora Borealis and Alkaid	The aurorae of 2015 Nov. 2-3 were dim, but they showed off the stars nicely.
Cat-scratch Aurorae	Naked eye, these aurorae appeared like pale grey cat scratches on the sky; the green color wasn't at all apparent naked eye. It took me forever to process this image well, because I took it with a cell phone (single sub, don't remember how many seconds) and didn't realize until years later that it was somewhat worth working on. Maybe, given where the field is, that should be "bear scratch"?
Cat-scratch Aurorae, labeled	Added labeling to note what's what here. Pretty sure Capella was in this field, but behind a tree.
Perseid with Rising Winter Constellations	This is a single still from a timelapse I did of the Perseids. And this meteor could hardly be a better example of a Perseid: Going right down the long arm of Perseus.



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Quick reference

Mostly for my own reference: what's going on in the sky right now.

Clear Sky Charts

From A. Danko's Clear Sky Charts page.







Aurora Borealis activity From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center.



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