The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is a spiral galaxy and is the closest neighbor to our Milky Way galaxy at a distance of about 2-1/2 million light years. It’s 220,000 light years across and contains about 1 trillion stars. It’s actually moving towards the Milky Way at about 70 miles per second and will collide and… Read More »
M13 is a globular cluster, consisting of about 300,000 stars, in the constellation Hercules. It’s about 25,100 light years away and 145 light years in diameter. Globular clusters are large collections of stars that are bound together by their gravity. In 1974 radio signals (the Arecibo Message) were beamed towards M31 in part as a… Read More »
At work I was pretty well known for being an Excel geek. I’ve created a wide array of spreadsheets to do just about anything including structural analysis and design, statistical analysis, financial and operational forecasts, modeling and reporting, 3D physical modeling and even creating scenery for MS Flight Simulator. One of the major evolution’s in reporting… Read More »
The North America Nebula is a very large emission nebula, resembling North America, in Cygnus near the star Deneb. Here you can see a large section of the nebula. You can also see parts of the Pelican Nebula on the right side. This one was a bit of a last minute challenge. Saturday night’s… Read More »
C27 Crescent Nebula – my best astrophoto yet! The Crescent Nebula is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus, about 5000 light-years away from Earth and about 25 light-years wide. It is formed by the fast stellar wind from the Wolf-Rayet star WR 136, right in the center of the nebula, colliding with and energizing… Read More »
One of my favorite Hubble photos is the Pillars of Creation, which shows three large columns of dust and gas which is in the process of creating new stars. These lie in the heart of M16, the Eagle Nebula, which is a fairly bright emission nebula in the constellation Serpens. Last Sunday night the skies were… Read More »
By some lucky coincidence, the skies have been clear for two nights in a row since my new telescope arrived. As it got to dusk I set up my mount, scope and laptop on the deck knowing I’d be able to see Polaris and Bode’s galaxy from there. Seeing as this was my first time… Read More »
All this spring Jupiter has been high in the night sky, appearing just below the constellation Leo. With it being the largest of the planets in our solar system, it’s a lot of fun to observe through a telescope. It’s great to see the cloud bands and especially the Great Red Spot which is a giant… Read More »
The Messier objects are a list of 110 deep space objects, including galaxies, nebula and star clusters, that can all be seen with small telescopes, binoculars and many even with the naked eye in reasonably dark skies. The majority of the list was created by Charles Messier in Paris in the late 1700’s. The largest,… Read More »
The sky ended up very clear tonight and the temps were still in the mid-30’s so I made my first attempt at taking a widefield photo of the Andromeda galaxy. I set up my homemade barndoor tracker on my deck and tried to align the hinge line with Polaris, but my neighbor’s trees were blocking… Read More »