#SkyWatch #Astrophotography The #Monkyhead Nebula aka #NGC2174 is about 6400 light years away in the Orion constellation. It doesn't come to view for me right now until about 2am so the sky was full of challenging fog when I captured nearly 3 hours of exposure for this image. It's one of my favorite subjects so I'm sure I'll image it again as Orion rises earlier and earlier. #StillLearning

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography Today's waning gibbous #Moon processed to more clearly show #Tycho the large crater near the center of the image #StillLearning

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography I tried some new techniques on this morning's waning gibbous #Moon #StillLearning

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography The North America is nebula is part of a large hydrogen alpha emission area near Deneb, the bright star at the end of tail in Swan of the Cygnus constellation. The bright cloud along the edge that looks like Mrxico is the Cygnus Wall, an active star formation area. This image is 48 five minute exposures captured with my 571mm optical train under a nearly full moon. #StillLearning

Day 1614 #DailyPhoto #SkyWatch #Astrophotography The #HeartNebula aka #IC1805 is an emission nebula 7500 light years from earth in the Persus arm of our galaxy. The center of the Heart contains a newborn (1.5 million years old) star cluster called Melotte 15. This image is 2.5 hours of exposure (30x300 seconds) that I started at 2 this morning under a nearly full moon (not ideal conditions). #StillLearning

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography The #FlyingBat Nebula is 2300 light years from Earth in the Cepheus constellation. In 2011, the extremely faint Squid Nebula was discovered in the center of the Bat. This image is nearly 5 hours of exposure salvaged from the night when I forgot to turn on my dew heater and so things look a bit messy despite my best efforts and there is no sign of the Squid. #StillLearning

Day 1608 #DailyPhoto #SkyWatch #Astrophotography The California Nebula is a large, faint nebula in the #Perseus constellation. It is about 1000 light years away. Its fluorescence comes from the hydrogen beta gas being energized by O7 star #Menkib which is the bright blue star in this image. I salvaged about 3.5 hours of exposure from a few nights ago when I forgot to turn my dew heater on. This explains why I wasn't able to get much detail in the nebula itself. #StillLearning

#Astrophotography #SkyWatch If you leave your equipment out overnight, dew can form on it as it cools down. To prevent that happening on the lens, we wrap a dew heater around it to prevent dew from forming. Although I plugged my dew heater in last night, I forgot to turn it on. Luckily, it will be cloudy for at least the next 3 nights which will give me plenty of time to think about not making mistakes the next time out. #StillLearning

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography #SolarPhotography is surprisingly hard. I'm still working on focus and proper exposure. But I thought the clouds were interesting, and the sunspots are cool. Never photograph the sun without a proper solar filter! #StillLearning

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography The #Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way, is 2.5 million light years from Earth. This means that the light from its more than 1 trillion stars left the galaxy 2.5 million years ago. It is approaching the Milky Way at approximately 68 miles per second and the two galaxies are expected to collide in 3 or 4 billion years. This image is 112 two-minute exposures that I captured last night. #StillLearning

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography The blue star near the left edge of this image is Sadr, which is the central star in the cross-shaped Cygnus constellation. The Sadr region contains many emission and dark nebulae, including the Butterfly to the left of Sadr and the Crescent in the lower right. This image is 90 minutes of exposure made with my 100mm lens last week. #StillLearning

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography The Heart (lower right) and Soul (upper left) nebulae are both emission nebulae in the Cassiopeia constellation. The Heart is about 7500 light years away while the Soul is about 6500 light years away. They are about 600 light years across. This image is five and a half hours of exposure captured last week. #StillLearning

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography #Sun #SolarPhotography Taking pictures of the sun can damage your equipment and, more importantly, your eyes. It's also challenging. I bought a solar filter so I could do it safely and am reasonably happy that I captured two sun spots in this first image. #StillLearning

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography I went out last night to see whether I could capture some meteors from the #Perseid meteor shower which will peak Saturday. I got a few like the one at the top of the #MilkyWay in this single 25-second exposure captured with my 14mm lens on my DSLR. The color at the bottom is the core of the Milky Way. #StillLearning

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography I have posted photos of the #CrescentNebula before but not ones created with my 250mm lens. This wider field of view shows the Crescent (lower right corner) amidst the hydrogen gas clouds of the #Sadr region in the center of the #Cygnus constellation. The Crescent is a shell caused by colliding gasses after a star explosion. #StillLearning

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography This image of 66 five-minute exposures (five and a half hours) shows SH2-171, an emission nebula that is part of the larger star-forming area NGC7822 in the Cepheus constellation. It contains the star cluster Berkeley 59, which has been studied to understand how stars form. The cluster contains the star Westerhout 1, a radiation source that is carving out the center of the nebula, creating the plumes of gas where stars are born. #StillLearning

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography The #SoulNebula aka #IC1848 is an emission nebula in #Cassiopeia about 7500 light years away. The center of the nebula is being carved out by radiation emitted by stars found there. This creates finger-like plumes of gas, called "pillars of creation", that can be seen along the edges. The gas is increasingly compressed to form new stars at the end of the plumes. This image is 70 five-minute exposures (5 hours and 50 minutes). #StillLearning

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography The #CocoonNebula aka #IC5146 is an emission nebula about 4000 light years away and about 15 light years across. It is a star formation area with hundreds of young stellar objects having been identified. It is surrounded by Barnard 168, a dark nebula that can be seen trailing off to the right in this image of 15 five-minute exposures. #StillLearning

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography The finger-like plumes of gas in the PacMan Nebula are Bok globules, named after Bart Bok. Bok and his collaborator Edith Reilly discovered over 200 of them throughout the night sky and correctly theorized their purpose as star-forming areas. Bok's full biography is online. Edith Reilly is relegated to one-sentence descriptions acknowledging her contributions. #Sexism #StillLearning

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography The blue star in this image is Gamma Cassiopeia, the bright star in the center of the W shape of the #Cassiopeia constellation. The Ghost of Cassiopeia aka #IC63 is the emission nebula to the left of the star. #IC57 is the blue reflection nebula above the Ghost. Reflection nebula aren't hot enough to generate their own light but instead can be seen only by their reflection of light from nearby stars. #StillLearning