Harry Potter and the Golden Snitch. Originally Posted November 10, 2021

 The Wizard Nebula (aka Harry Potter and the Golden Snitch) is an open cluster of young stars and associated nebulosity. It was discovered by Caroline Herschel, sister of the famous astronomer, William Herschel. At the center of the cluster are two massive O-type stars. These stars are ionizing the region and driving star formation in the nebula. This image is a combination of 80 x 70s images, processed more heavily and cropped than the last image. This process increased noise a little, but brought out significant detail in the nebulosity. Taken with the RASA and NBZ filter.

A Lion in the Sky! Originally Posted October 28, 2021.

 The Lion Nebula is an emission nebula in the constellation Cephus. Two massive Wolf-Rayet stars energize the cloud. Can you see the Lion? Hint: it's a lion's head. The top is pointed to the upper right corner and his jaw and snout to the lower left (it looks more like a bear's head to me). The image was captured with a RASA 8 scope and a Mallincam DS10C camera. This image was captured using an NBZ filter, which is much more attuned to fast optics like those in the RASA.

The Elephant's Trunk Nebula. Originally Posted Sept. 15, 2021.

 Continuing this series of images captured with narrowband filters, here is the Elephant's Trunk Nebula. This is part of a much larger complex of interstellar gas and dust. The nebula appears to be a site of star formation as a number of very young stars have been detected in it. The bright rim of the trunk is a region ionized by a massive star, HD 206267, which is hidden in the cloud. This image was captured at the CSO on September 14, 2021.

The RASA Arrives! The North America Nebula. Originally Posted August 30, 2021

Close to Deneb in the sky is the large North America Nebula. Part of this nebula complex is the Pelican Nebula. The Pelican is a star forming region here new stars are being born in large numbers. This image was taken with a Rowe-Ackerman-Schmidt- Astrograph (RASA) telescope (as was the earlier image of the Western Veil). The RASA is a very fast scope that can only be used for imaging. Note that this and some other images to be posted here were made with the Optolong L-eNhance filter. This filter is unsuitable for superfast optics like those in the RASA (f/2). Despite the fact that the filter dramatically attenuates hydrogen alpha light, images with the RASA turned out quite well.
 

A Cosmic Witch's Broom! Originally Posted August 30, 2021

 This is one of my favorite objects: the supernova remnant know as the West Veil Nebula, or sometimes, the Witch's Broom Nebula. The supernoa took place before recorded history, but the blast wave continues to ripple through space. The red gas is hydrogen, the blue green is oxygen. Above the lower streamer, you can see Pickering's Triangle, which is part of the Cygnus Loop. The Cygnus Loop is the supernova remnant of which the West Veil is just a part.

The Horsehead Nebula--Originally Posted February 8, 2021

 One of my very favorite objects is a difficult one to image without filters--the Horsehead Nebula in Orion. Here are two images taken from CSO. One is with a William Optics 61 mm refractor, the other with an 8 inch Newtonian astrograph. As you can see, the WO scope has a much wider field and captures other nebulas in the same area of sky, like the Flame. The Newt has a nice focus on the Horsehead and its environs. These images were captured with an Optolong L-eNhance filter.

Mars!--Originally Posted October 27, 2020

 We had excellent seeing here in Charlotte last night--here is an image of Mars captured with the little 125mm Mak. The images all look a little different as I experiment with various degrees of processing. It's a great tribute to the quality of Mak scopes, which are, in my opinion, unbeatable for small-aperture lunar and planetary imaging.