A Way Made of Milk

The Milky Way shooting up from the edge of the sky to arc gracefully overhead.

The Pillars of Creation

I think that this is the coolest picture I have ever taken. I took this last night of the Eagle Nebula or M16. Visible right in the center are the Pillars of Creation. This is an intense star forming region. It is a bit grainy, and not all that well processed, but this is the first time I have got what I think of as a proper deep sky image. I hope you like it as much as I do!

M13 - My Best Yet!

Compare this to the previous pictures of M13 I have taken and you will see what I mean! The seeing was just extraordinary tonight. I also have pictures of M31, and M51 which I will work on tomorrow. I Am also going to try to figure out how to get this one into a color photo, but for now, this works.

Slipping into the sun

Here is another view of that spectacular alignment of last weekend. This was taken just as it was about to slip away into the sunrise at about 5:30 in the morning.

Pictured are Venus at the bottom left, the moon in the middle, and Jupiter at the top right.

This one I took from the top of Mount Tolmie on my way to bed. I tend to like to get to bed before the  sun rises just on a matter of principle.

4 Little Dots and 1 Big Dot

Here is our long lost friend Jupiter, seen here with all four of his buddies, the Galilean moons. In this picture the order is from left to right Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa.I took this through my little 4.5 inch telescope just a few days ago at about 4 in the morning or so. A friend and I spent the entire night from sunrise to sunset outside taking photos of the stars. It was lovely!

A Beautiful Alignment

I took this on saturday night...well sunday morning actually at around 3:30. In the picture is the moon shining bright in the center. Lined up to either side of it however is what makes this image special. Up and to the right is the bright dot that is Jupiter, and below to the left is the bright dot that is Venus. The all lined up for a very spectacular show. Also in this picture is Taurus, just to the right of Jupiter.

Wow!

Here is another picture from Quadra Island. This is actually a composite of three pictures, left right and centre. These three frames combine into what I think is one of my favourite astrophotos I have taken! When you click on the picture to enlarge it take not of three things. The first is the milky way stretching upwards from the centre of the picture. The second is the satellite which came out of the milky way and passed into the tree on the right. It is broken because I had to turn the camera. The third is the satellite in the far left hand side going up from the trees. I think this picture is really neat, and I am going to do more like it.

Vines and Lines

Startrails from Quadra Island.

I don't know why, but I quite like this one. I like the grapevines maybe.

Seeing Double

Alberio! This is a binary star system located about 380 light years from earth. It is believed that the orbital period of the stars around each other is about 100,000 years. As you can see, each of the stars is a markedly different color. As it turns out, the brighter yellow star is actually itself a very close binary system with two stars going around each other. The color of the stars tells us a lot about the stars. From just this picture we can tell that the blue star is much hotter than the yellow star.

Just Past Full

Lots of moon pictures these days!

Fly Me to the Moon

This I think is a very cool picture. I was looking through the finder scope of the 32 inch with my camera, and I saw a black moving thing on the moon. I snapped the shutter and this is what I saw! It was only lined up with the moon for about half a second, so it is super lucky that I got it. The only unfortunate thing is that i also got part of the crosshairs from the finderscope in the picture as well.

Open to the Moon

Staring at a nearly full moon last night.