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This nebula is ~5500 light-years from Earth and is ~15 light-years in diameter. It is considered one of the brightest and most massive star-forming regions of our galaxy. Its local geometry is similar to the Orion Nebula except it is viewed edge-on rather than face-on. This is the result of...

No filters, Jim. This cloud complex is a mix of emission, reflection, and dark nebulas so using a filter would omit a lot of the light and color. I generally shy away from using camera lenses whenever possible because they simply cannot compare to the superior optics of a good telescope...

Galaxy season is just about over so it's time to focus on targets within our own Milky Way. This is a new & improved image of the Rho Ophiuchi (pronounced 'roh oh-fee-yoo-ki') cloud complex which I captured 3 years ago under windy conditions that resulted in "less than desireable" sharpness...

While processing images from an astrophotography session last weekend, I noticed a very small anomaly in the final image that looked odd - a short streak of light that spanned only 30 pixels or so. After discussions with some experts and a lot of online research, I determined that the...

The Sunflower Galaxy (aka M63) is a flocculent spiral galaxy located ~27 million light-years from Earth. Flocculent spiral galaxies do not have well defined spiral arms; instead, they appear to have many discontinuous arms. Although the Sunflower Galaxy only has two arms, many appear to be...

After the long drive home from Indianapolis (to San Diego) and 4 full days of post-processing, I finally have some images worth sharing. We start with the "Diamond Ring", then the solar prominences at 2nd contact (C2), then an HDR composite of the totality, followed by the solar prominences on...

Further details... Here are two images of the sun along with the RGB histograms, one taken with a Thousand Oaks SolarLite filter and one taken with the Baader film. There's a hugh difference. And although the Baader film has a slight blue tint to it, that is easily removed in post to yield a...

If you are planning to use a filter to photograph the eclipse, I suggest you NOT use a screw-on lens filter. I bought an expensive one for my 600mm lens and after practicing the removal/re-attachment process several times, it quickly became apparent that precious time was being lost fiddling...

Affectionately known as the "Hamburger Galaxy" (aka NGC 3628), about 35 million light years from Earth. It is seen edge-on and the thick, dark dust clouds along the outer rim obscure the light from the stars in the galaxy giving the appearance of a hamburger between two buns. There are two...

Last Saturday night, my primary target was the Hamburger Galaxy, but there are two comets that I wanted to capture as well. Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is in the western sky just after sunset right now. I only managed to get about 15 minutes of open shutter time on it, but the image turned out "OK"...

Hey Jim, No, no filter. Just a series of 180s exposures. I would have liked to go with 4 or 5 minute exposures but the 3-5 MPH breeze was already affecting the HFR.

Here is my first mosaic of two different subjects, M81 and M82. They are less than 1 degree apart in the sky so they make good candidates for a mosaic. See separate posts for each subject for imaging and post-processing details.

The Cigar Galaxy (aka M82) is a starburst galaxy about 12 million light-years away. It's about five times more luminous than the Milky Way and its central region is about one hundred times more luminous. It experiences gravitational interactions with its galactic neighbor, Bode's Galaxy (M81)...

Bode's Galaxy (aka M81) is about 12 million light-years away - a close neighbor in galactic terms, one of the nearest galaxies beyond the "Local Group". With prominent, clearly defined spiral arms, it is an excellent example of a grand design spiral galaxy and a favorite target of amateur...

Hey Jim, Nice result for Bortle 8/9 skies. It's crisp without being oversharpened, colors are good, saturation is dialed in nicely, background is set about right... not much constructive criticsism to offer on this one. Unfortunately, I looked at @Comet Hunter's image before yours and, well...

Hi Jim, This looks pretty darn good for Bortle 8/9 skies - great job! You may want to dial back the sharpening and/or star reduction, as it appears that the stars within the nebula have tiny dark halos around them giving the image a "crunchy" appearance. It's very subtle, and maybe an...

Well done, Jim! And very impressive considering your environment.

Nicely done, Jim!

Better seeing is really about laminar flow of the atmosphere. Sometimes you can have great seeing by the coast, but not usually. The best seeing is at the top of a high mountain where they atmosphere is very thin. The seeing has been better at TDS on some cold winter nights.

I applied to some of the lessons learned from the weekend we were out there and trie again last weekend. The results were slightly better, but I think seeing is the limiting factor in the clarity of the planet itself.