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The "Dark Shark Nebula" (aka LDN 1235) is a dark/reflection nebula made up of interstellar dust which is so thick it hides most of the light from behind it. Just behind the dorsal fin, you can see a distant spiral galaxy (PGC67671). This is the result of 6-1/4 hours of exposure time taken on...

The North America Nebula (aka NGC7000) is a huge emission nebula, a vast region of mostly hydrogen gas, so named because its shape resembles North America. It’s part of the same interstellar cloud as the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070), which is to the right in this image. They are separated by a...

A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY… About 40 million years ago, in a galaxy known as NGC 7331, a very large star (at least 8 times larger than our sun) exhausted enough of its nuclear fuel that the energetic pressure from the fusion process could no longer counter the immense...

The Tulip Nebula (aka SH2-101) is an emission nebula about 6000 light-years from Earth. It's close to microquasar Cygnus X-1, one of the first suspected black holes. Cygnus X-1 is orbited by a blue supergiant star (21 times as massive as our sun) which feeds a spinning accretion disk around...

This globular cluster known as Messier 5 is ~25,000 light-years away and contains hundreds of thousands of stars. Stars in globular clusters are believed to form in the same stellar nursery and grow old together. The most massive stars age quickly, exhausting their fuel supply in less than a...

Jim Fox asked me to post some photos of my new mount - a 10Micron GM1000HPS. I finally got a chance to take some decent photos and annotate them, so here they are. Although pricey, this mount has incredible tracking accuracy, as shown in the PHD2 guide plot following the photos. I can't wait...

#1 - Bode's Galaxy (M81): #2 - Cigar Galaxy (M82): #3 - Hamburger Galaxy (NGC3628): #4 - Solar Eclipse Totality: #5 - Solar Eclipse Prominences: #6 - Sunflower Galaxy (M63): #7 - Rho Ophiuch Cloud Complex: #8 - Omega Nebula (M17): #9 - Dumbbell Nebula (M27): #10 - Helix Nebula...

The Christmas Tree Cluster is a young open cluster which contains the Cone Nebula, the Fox Fur Nebula, and the Snowflake Cluster. The stars in the cluster formed within the emission nebula NGC 2264. They are still heavily obscured by the thick dust clouds that keep producing new stars...

A stunning face-on spiral galaxy, M74 is a perfect example of a grand-design spiral galaxy. Symmetrical spiral arms reach out from the galaxy’s central nucleus and are traced by winding dust lanes. The arms are dotted with clusters of young, blue stars and pink regions where the ultraviolet...

Just in time for the "Rings of Power" season 2 finale, I bring you the "Eye of Sauron" (officially known as the Helix Nebula or NGC 7293). It's a colorful planetary nebula about 650 light-years away, formed by a star which shed its outer layers near the end of its life. The remnant central...

The Iris Nebula (aka NGC7023) is a blue reflection nebula surrounded by large clouds of interstellar dust about 1400 light-years away. Its color comes from the scattered light of a bright young star at its center (the same physics which makes our sky blue). This is the result of over 7-1/2...

The Dumbbell Nebula (aka M27 and NGC6853) is a planetary nebula about 1360 light-years from Earth. It was the first planetary nebula ever discovered. The nebula is the result of an old star that shed its outer layers in a glowing display of color as it collapsed into a white dwarf. This is...

The Hercules Cluster (aka M13) is a globular cluster about 25,000 light-years from Earth, consisting of over 100,000 stars spanning 145 light-years. Near the core of this cluster, the density of the stellar population is about a hundred times greater than the density in the neighborhood of our...

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...

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...

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"...